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THE GOSPEL OF 

CAUSE 



BY 

THOS. H. NELSON 
Evangelist 



Author of "Life 
and Labors of Rev. 
Vivian A. Dake," 
"The Midnight 
Cry," "Marvels in 
Metaphor," etc. X 



AND 
EFFECT 

OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
REWARDS AND 
PUNISHMENTS HERE 
AND HEREAFTER. 



'•'•Let this mind be in you which 
was also in Christ Jesus who being 
in the form of God (man was 
originally made in the image of God) 
thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God. n — Phil. 2:5,6. 

Reader, consider the extent of 
this astounding command. 



GRACE PUBLISHING CO, 

INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the 
year 1903, by Thos, H. Nelson, in the office 
of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




PREFAGE. 

The writing of this manual on the philosophy of 
rewards and punishments here and hereafter is the 
result of a semi-inspiration which took hold of the 
writer's heart while engaged in earnest and pro- 
longed prayer for a real revival of true religion. 
That inspiration came in, doubtless, through the 
medium of the earnest thought that the writer has 
given for years to the writing of another book, soon 
to be placed before the public, "The Goming Re- 
vival: Its conditions and the nature and extent of 
its results, as contradistinguished from all preced- 
ing revivals." "The Gospel of Gause and Effect" 
is a practical protest against formalism and a power- 
ful plea for heartiness in all worthy undertakings. 
Physiology, philosophy, geology, psychology, as- 
tronomy, and even the crude studies of phrenology 
and physiognomy and the experience and history of 
the animal, vegetable and mineral worlds are called 
in to testify to the truth or falsity of the gospel and 
its demands. These witnesses are seen to raise 
their hats, make their bow and swear by the innate 
elements of their own being and the universal and 
essential nature of all created substances, that the 
gospel is true and its demands wise and good in the 
superlative degree. There is no more beautiful, 
interesting or instructive subject for study than the 
law of "cause and effect," and a careful perusal of 
these pages will we hope prove a blessing to many 
by begetting a deeper love for its examination. 

The Author. 



Si cognosceres Deum, te cognosce; 
si cognosceres te, Deum cognosce. 



GONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. Man as the builder of his own affec- 



tions, dispositions, appetites, tempers, etc. . . 3 
Chapter 1 1. The natural gravitation of men here 

and hereafter to the level for which they have 

prepared themselves 25 

Chapter III. Man's choice of good or evil, the basis 

of blessing or blight 38 

Chapter IV. In comparison with the lower animals, 

man's reasoning soul is his hope 60 

Chapter V. Man identified literally as the son of 

God rather than a mere animal 71 

Chapter VI. Man's physical condition in its last 

analysis is largely expressive of his true spiritual 

state 99 

Chapter VII. The Author of nature is the author of 

law, and divine law is the basis of answers to 

prayer 131 

CHAPTER VIII. The temperate, torrid and frigid 

zones of prayer 145 

Chapter IX. Higher criticism criticized. ... 160 

CHAPTER X. The pseudo-scientists' effort to make 
the God of creation a universal absentee. ^The 
life of Jesus a prophecy of the history of true 
Christianity 169 

CHAPTER XI. The origin, nature and work of the 

devil 1S4 

CHAPTER XII. Some striking illustrations of re- 
demption 203 

Chapter XIII. Adam and creation shadowing forth 
Christ and redemption. The Good Samaritan 
of Christianity and the coming answer to the 
prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven." . 233 



CHAPTER I. 



That shrewd and thoughtful observation of facts 
and faces, which some would exalt to the dignity of 
a science, called "Physiognomy," shows plainly 
that the invisible man has nearly all his character- 
istics stamped upon his countenance. It does not 

show as plainly as it might, how- 
Men are the 

moulders of their ever, that he is largely responsi- 

own features. J 

ble, personally, for these very 
features. Our present dispositions in their mag- 
nanimity or pusilanimity are both the fruit and 
proof of our own noble or ignoble choices in the 
past. There is no more stupid or groundless 
heresy current, than the fallacy that men are not 
responsible for their natures, as revealed in their 
appetites, tempers, affections, dispositions, etc. 

We grant that there is such a thing as pre-natal 
influence, and that some children, cursed by their 

parents, are born with a tend- 

Children have a 

born* to be wel1 ency to a ^ ev ^ * n general, and 
to some evils in particular; but 
that this bad bias is irremediable we cannot admit. 
To admit of such a thing would be to rob God of His 



4 



THE GOSPEL OF 



judicial prerogative; for what right would the 
Deity have to reward righteousness or punish 
Begin to teach a iniquity, if men have no control 



tendency? Life is really formed from the invisible 
and internal to the visible and external, and not to 
the contrary, as is commonly supposed. The soul 
rescues itself from its mere spiritual condition by 
exactly duplicating itself in the physical body, 
through the brain battery and nerve system. The 
fact is that men are the arbiters of their own 
future, the architects of their own eternal dwell- 
The visible earth m S s - Though saved by faith, 



is as true physiologically as it is theologically. 
There is no escape from the consequences of our 
affections, choices and actions. Our only hope lies 
in the renunciation of base desire, before choice 
has made it bloom in action. God himself saves 
from the effects of sin, largely by saving from the 
sin itself. 

To the thoughtful mind it is written on the very 
face of all corporeal substance, ''He who sins must 
suffer." He who criminally ignores this warning, 
deserves to die, lest he perpetuate his ignorance; 
so it is written, "The fear of the Lord prolongeth 
days,but the years of the wicked shall be shortened." 



Begin to teach 
child when his 
grandsire is a 
baby. 



over their lives, but were forced 
to blindly follow a pre-natal 



is but the corpor- 
eal izing of the 
spiritual. 



men are always "rewarded ac- 
cording to their works," This 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



5 



It is so arranged in the very nature of all things 
that neither meanness nor magnanimity can be 
concealed for any great length 



tenance of the evil-doer, and the eye of the intelli- 
gent observer becomes a sort of nasal organ with 
which he smells the act. This is the principle em- 
bodied in the words of Holy writ, "He beautifies 
the meek with salvation," that is, through a holy, 
benevolent life. 

There is no one so thoroughly deceived as the 
one who would deceive another. And the record 
of his deception is in his countenance no less than 
his conscience. As in the days of Esther, men 
hang themselves today as high as Haman, by build- 
ing gallows for others. Nebuchadnezzar's fiery 
furnace slew the Babylonian officials that thrust 
the three Hebrews into its burning bosom; while 
the righteous trio had only their bands burned off 
by the flames. It is rather fatal business to "make 
it hot" for others. God has said, "With what 
measure ye mete v/ithal, it shall be measured to 
you again." 

Righteousness is largely its own reward, and 
wickedness its own punishment, even in this life. 
The things which we permit to lodge in our hearts 
mould us in their own image, and tincture us with 
their own taste, be it good or bad. It is a self-act- 



Sin and suffering 
are united in 
eternal wedlock. 



of time. The diabolism of a deed 
registers itself in the very coun- 



6 THE GOSPEL OF 

ing principle, a subtle compensation, that finds its 
expression in all the minutiae of life, that "whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he 

Penuriousness 

is its own punish- also reap.' These words are as 

ment. 

scientific as scriptural. He who 
permits base, contracted or unworthy conceptions 
of God, or ill feelings or suspicions toward man to 
have a lodging place in his heart, personally becomes 
by that very fact, base, contracted, groveling and 
unworthy. He has given activity to a cause which 
cannot fail in its effect. It is worse than useless 
to ask God to make us loving, magnanimous and 
Ghrist-like while we exercise the opposite traits of 
character, for exercise must ever develop the par- 
ticular powers used and not their opposites. Vice 
becomes its own victim and vir- 

Magnanimity its ... .. TIT , 

own reward. tue its own coronation. Work 

and wages are equalled. Mean- 
ness mars. Holiness happifies. Grosses crown 
their victims, while thrones their wicked rulers 
damn. He who blesses another is blest thereby 
himself and the benediction received equals the 
one bestowed. 

With both malediction and benediction there is a 
reactionary movement, which brings them back to 
smite or smile upon their authors. To be untrue 
to another is to outrage one's self, and the per- 
formance regulates the pay. Simple goodness is 
embryotic greatness and common honesty is nebular 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. Z 

nobility. Penuriousness impoverishes itself, while 
benevolence ennobles and glorifies its author. 

Purity is power, wickedness is 

Impossible to do . . 

wrong and dodge weakness, indolence is idiocy. 

consequences. 

Good or evil, God or devil is in 
the power of our choice. The sinner's warning - , 
"Be sure your sin will find you out," has its coun- 
terpart in the Master's words, "He that reapeth 
receiveth wages;" and that "wage" is seen to em- 
body an eternal element in the clause that follows: 
"And gathereth fruit unto life eternal." Men will 
sing or sigh, worship or wail, both here and here- 
after, according to the choices they make. The 
earning of transgression is doom, but the donation 
of Jehovah is limitless existence. 

The mental as well as the muscular qualities are 
developed by use and shriveled by disuse. It is in 
the power of the human will to decide whether the 
mental development shall be made prominent in the 
intellectual, moral or animal qualities, located 
respectively and significantly in the fore, upper and 
back parts of the brain. Moral qualities have the 
power to transform themselves into physical enti- 
ties, and transmit themselves to the body, through 
the brain and nerves. Any intelligent investigator 
after truth can see how the vital connection be- 
tween the invisible and responsible life quality and 
the physical body is kept up through the shading 
off process from muscles to nerves, from nerves to 



8 THE GOSPLL OF 

brain; and from the brain to the invisible "ego" and 
vice versa. 

That wonder of physiology, the voluntary nerve 
mechanism or attenuated, influential nerve arcs or 
curved endings which man possesses in a high 
degree in addition to the mere involuntary or 
automatic nerve attachment of the lower orders of 
animals and plants, forms the chief visible agent in 
the physical transformation and bodily register of 
the moral miasma of the heart. This miracle of 
mechanism, these significantly named and located 
inner and upper influential arcs or voluntary nerves, 
center in the fountain of the creature's highest 
intelligence and powers of moral choice. Those 
orders of animals that have nothing but the auto- 
matic nerve arcs, are under no moral law, for they 
have no moral faculties. Their performances are 
the instinctive actions of necessity, rather than the 
result of free will; they are mere animated 
machines rather than free moral agents. This 
mere automatic nerve construction secures them 
from the possibility of depravity, but also precludes 
the possibility of intellectual or spiritual develop- 
ment. These influential arcs form the key to the 
telegraph receiving and transmitting instrument of 
the nerves, which the morally responsible spirit 
uses to send its messages to every part of the body. 

A noble or ignoble choice on the part of the will 
sets the corresponding brain battery in motion; and 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



9 



out through the telegraph wires of the nerves the 
result of that choice is carried, 

The soul regis- 
ters Its nature on and its nature is actually and 

the body. 

indelibly penciled upon every 
atom of the physical body, like sounds on the cylinder 
of a phonograph. 

How jealously men should guard their hearts 
and choose wisely between the subjects of good 
and evil, presented by God or 
rise often in the the devil. The mistake of 

invisible spirit. 

scientists in general and doc- 
tors in particular, has been to separate soul and 
body and consider life in its visible and physical 
manifestations only; as if disease had no direct 
connection with the spirit life-spring. The silly 
sophistry of the so-called Christian Scientists and 
mere mental evolutionists is but the reaction from 
this fallacy and the opposite extreme of the same. 

We must not make the fatal mistake of suppos- 
ing that the mere body is the man. It is but an 
approximate physical duplication of a spiritual 
being. The physical machinery is bestowed upon 
the ethereal man in his probation, as the Scriptures 
would say, "to profit withal." He must necessarily 
at the end of his probation, be rewarded or ruined 
''according to his works." Man is as truly a trinity 
as is God, his Father; and each of his component 
parts, body, soul and spirit, are as essential to his 
perfect being, as to his well-being, both here and 
hereafter. 



10 



THE GOSPEL OF 



It is a great mistake to suppose that the under- 
taker entirely divorces the spirit and the body. We 
will need our minds and bodies 

A reunion of seal 

antibody beyond again beyond the grave. No 

the grave. to J ■ 



are peculiarly our property. There will be a glori- 
ous re-union in the resurrection morning, when we 
shall have bodies fashioned like unto His glorious 
body, who is "the chief est of ten thousand and the 
one altogether lovely." "This mortal must put on 
immortality," and "death be swallowed up of life." 
Plow carefully then should we watch over and 
develop our bodies and souls, as well as our spirits; 
for our works, as the fruit of our affections and 
choices will eternally distinguish us, "as one star 
differeth from another star in glory." 

This doctrine of resurrection stamps the teach- 
ing of the transmigration of souls as an insane im- 



rection day and to all eternity. The modern 
reviving of this old exploded heathen fallacy, that 
would at present resolve a man into a vivified 
shadow from the graveyard, and a future nonentity 
without identity, deserves a severe rebuke for its 
ignorance and audacity. 

We multiply or minify our talents by use or dis- 
use, like the pounds of the Master's parable. God 



one else can have them. They 



Tr an emigration 
antagonistic to 
the doctrine of 
resurrection. . 



possibility, since our personality 
and identity must be an indi- 
vidual possession, in the resur- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 1 1 

loves and finds pleasure in every element of the 
lives that he has made; and his highest glory is 
inseparably connected with 

Higher criticism . 

is lower Christ- man s greatest good in body, 

lessness m fact. 

mind and spirit. Our mooted 
philanthropy and organized charities are but an 
insane reaction from the theologian's neglect of 
the physical body; and so-called higher criticism 
is a correspondingly insane reaction from the 
church's neglect of the mind. Higher criticism is 
lower Ghristlessness in reality, because in every 
element it endeavors to do away with a super- 
natural spirit power and make the soul an element 
of, or goal for physical and mental evolution. Be- 
tween the two extremes of higher criticism and 
thoughtless formalism, there is a happy medium 
where that which is right in each is unitedly 
harmonized in a sound Christianity. 

Mental and moral development are all right in 
their places, but all effort to make the soul the 
m a mere fruit of development is 

The development 

of a nonentity, a really to make a man his own 

manifest fallacy. J 

progenitor. When our higher 
critics prove themselves capable of being their own 
fathers, it will be time enough to heed their teach- 
ings. The developing of a child before it is born or 
even conceived, is too early for sound education. 
The development of a nonentity is a manifest 
fallacy; for development bespeaks the pre-exist- 



12 THE GOSPEL OF 

ence of something to develop. This kind of 
development, as one has said, is a "devil-up-ment," 
indeed. The degenerate spirit, 

The death-deal- 
ing- qualities of a through a vital faith in Christ 

fit of anger. 

must be regenerated and puri- 
fied, in order to have a medium of true development 
opened up to it. All development that has not this 
fact for its base, is pseudo-evolution and not true 
spiritual growth. To show that the pre-existing 
spirit, the magisterial will, in its choices, is the 
responsible agent of virtue or vice, health or 
disease, life or death, we have only to state an 
accredited fact, that all of the secretions of the 
body are purged or poisoned by powerful passions, 
good or bad. 

A mother may instantly kill her infant child by 
nursing it after a violent fit of anger, or a great 
fright. Fear or anger has also been known to 
cause apoplexy and death. Worry or sorrow has 
been known to turn the dark hair white, make a 
young person old and wreck a life in a few short 
hours. Every secretion of the body was poisoned 
by the condition which the invisible life-energv 
produced, and which was by it distributed through 
the brain battery, nerve wires and circulatory 
blood system. 

A chemical analysis of the perspiration or the 
saliva of persons after a paroxysm of anger, a fit of 
jealousy or a night of debauch, etc., reveals the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 15 

same as being filled with a deadly poison, a breeder 
of disease and death. An able American authority 
a chemical anai- on therapeutics declares: 
Sditlawfuf liva "Anger changes the chemical 
proper-ties of the saliva to a 
poison dangerous to life; and violent emotions 
sometimes weaken the heart in a few hours, till 
insanity and death are caused thereby." 

It has been discovered by scientists that there is 
a chemical difference between that sudden, cold 
a chemical detec- exudation of a person under a 
your sfnwmflnd deep sense of guilt, and ordin- 
ary perspiration. The state of 
the mind can sometimes be determined by a chemi- 
cal analysis of the perspiration of a criminal, which, 
when brought in contact with selenic acid, pro- 
duces a distinctive pink color found in no other 
case." No wonder God said, "Be sure your sin 
will find you out." 

This is what the apostle James means when he 
declares that a wicked tongue, as the tool of a bad 
The apostle's neart > "defiles the whole body, 
S°th d e s he f art llfire and setteth on fire the wheel 

are scientific. £ ,.- > / ., , . 

of life, (as it reads m the 
original, meaning the circulatory system) or course 
of nature;" and closes by saying, "Hissed on fire 
of hell." This is not hyperbolic or metaphoric as 
many suppose, but purely scientific, as the forego- 
ing facts prove. This implies that men take their 



14 THE GOSPEL OF 

fagots to the flames of the eternal pit with them, if 
they go, in the form of these degenerate natures of 
body, mind and spirit. Tumors, cancers, fevers, 
chills and various congestions and diseases, directly 
or indirectly have their rise largely in unnatural 
action, as suggested in this text. Jesus said that 
by keeping his commandments, we should affection- 
ately fear the God of grace and nature, "Who is 
able to cast both soul and body into hell where the 
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." 
Probation being ended at death, and the experi- 
ences and conditions of life being eternally fixed, of 
necessity the "worm" of remorse cannot "die," nor 
the "fire" of unholy desire "be quenched." 

The soul indellibly registers its vices or virtues 
upon the body. The following pungent passage 
from a worthy contemporary is 

The fatal physic- J 

ai results of a fit to the point here: If a person 

of anger. 

is dominated for a moment by, 
say a fit of anger, there is set up in the physical 
organism what we might justly term a bodily 
thunder-storm, which has the effect of souring or 
rather corroding the normal, healthy and life-giving 
secretions of the body; so that instead of perform- 
ing their natural functions they become poisonous 
and destructive. And if this goes on to any great 
extent, by virtue of their cumulative influences, 
they give rise to a particular form of disease, which 
in turn becomes chronic. So the emotions opposite 



CAUSE AND EFFEGT. 15 

to this, those of kindness, love, benevolence, good- 
will, etc., tend to stimulate a healthy, purifying and 
life-giving flow of the bodily secretions. All the 
channels of the body are free and open and the life 
goes bounding through them." These same 
benevolent forces, if kept in boundless activity, 
have a tendency in time to counteract the poison- 
ous and death-dealing effects of their opposites. 
God has said, "A (divinely) merry heart doeth good 
like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the 
bones/' In the light of this scientific fact, no 
wonder God has said, "Keep thy heart with all 
diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." 

If the effects of vice or virtue are seen to be so 
great upon the physical body, what infinitely 
greater effects must be produced 

The countenance 

c?inie egister ° f upon the never-dying spirit. 

Even ignorant people recognize 
the fruit of this truth, that the crime is registered 
in the countenance, in the fact that they look in 
the faces of wicked men for traces of past guilt 
and present degeneracy. Again, the reason why 
bad men find it hard to break away from their 
wicked habits, lies in the fact that they have lived 
so long in certain characteristics and through 
exercise have developed certain base brain facul- 
ties, till those faculties and nerve habits are strong 
and assertive and not easily crushed out. Such 
men's natures are not only grooved to evil, but 



16 THE GOSPEL OF 

developed in it. The gospel alone offers a rescue 
from this awful state, in that it begets new appe- 
tites, tempers and passions in the man and leaves 
the old, base brain developments to shrivel through 
disuse, while the moral qualities are being developed 
by use. 

"A new heart and a new spirit will I put within 
you." The new spirit has new desires, appetites, 
Grace or disgrace passions and choices; conse- 
naffyfwMchsnaii quently, a new development of 
the mind. Science emphasizes 
the Master's words, "Ye must be born again." 

In the light of this fact, what madness it is to 
give place to a base or unholy feeling, passion or 
choice. What a mighty incentive to righteousness 
of life should this prove. From the principle of 
mere self-interest, do not these truths call for pur- 
ity, magnanimity, benevolence, patience, charity 
and every noble choice? Reason and revelation 
agree in declaring, "The way of the transgressor is 
hard." 

This is the basal principle of the gospel blessing 
in general. Good news when believed, causes 
great joy, and the ecstacy of 

Hope and happi- 

Seaitn 116 basis of 6 ^ r ^ ^ nus produced inspires a 
more rapid and healthful heart 
action; thus all the natural activities of the body 
and mind are stimulated and strengthened and the 
encroachment of disease and decay resisted. The 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 1Z 

gospel was called by angels, "Glad tidings of great 
joy, that shall be unto all people." When a man 
actually believes that angelic message of glad tid- 
ings of a limitless and free redemption, the result is 
that "great joy" is produced in his heart at once. 
A new energy seems to leap out through his veins, 
quickening every faculty into natural and bound- 
less activity. His step is firmer, his cheek is 
redder, his eye is more full of the fire of expecta- 
tion, and a general strength and elasticity is infused 
into the whole body and mind. This is the inspira- 
tion of hope, begetting a fervency 

Faith or unbelief ... .-. , r . 

springs of nope of spirit as its natural fruit. 

or despair. 

This fervency as the fruit of 
faith is the antipodes of the dead formality which is 
the fruit of unbelief in the glad tidings. Faith or un- 
belief is the spring of expectation or despair and 
in its last analysis, in both intensity and extent, 
hopefulness is happiness, healthfulness and heaven 
while hopelessness is haplessness, healthlessness 
and hell. Hope surely inspires happiness, happi- 
ness certainly tends to healthfulness and the com- 
bination of hope, health and happiness forms a 
heaven on earth, limited only by their own 
degree. 

We must further elucidate this fact that the 
ruinous consequences of badness are as manifest 
in the body as in the spirit. Sin is an unnatural 
element, an abnormal inoculation in the whole life, 

2 



18 



THE GOSPEL OF 



and its natural results are as disorganizing and de- 
structive in the realm of the mind and body, as 
The destructive insanity or smallpox. Take the 



as opium, cocaine, tobacco, snuff, liquor, etc.; the 
effects at once go beyond the spiritual realm of 
theological guilt and influence the natural realm of 
physiological law, resulting in disease and pain and 
premature death. 

This is equally true of licentiousness, gluttony 
and every unnatural appetite or habit of body, mind, 



is a cause of nervous disorder and bodily disease. 
All violent passion is just so much poison infused 
into the system and soul, mind and body are in- 
fluenced thereby. The mind and the spirit must 
rest in perfect and natural balance, or the abnormal 
condition caused by the unbalanced and disquieted 
state of the same results in friction, inflammation and 
the unnaturalness of disease. Wickedness then is 
a prime cause of disease, as God's Word declares, "By 
one man's transgression came sin into the world 
and death (disease) by sin." Here either ignorantly 
or willfully we find the continuous cause of the pois- 
oning of the fountain of physical health to this day. 
"The way of the transgressor is hard." It is no 



effects ot moral 
wrong upon the 
body. 



indulgence of an abnormal and 
acquired appetite for narcotics, 



Violent passion 
as a malignant 
poison. 



or spirit, as was previously 
shown. Every disturbance of 
the natural or spiritual equipoise 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



19 



proof against this general fact that disease becomes 
hereditary or contagious and, at times smites the 
innocent. It is rather a part of the Lord's correc- 
tive plan to influence the good to force the bad, as 
far as possible to live naturally and right. 

Moral badness transforms itself into physical 
disease by the spirit's poisoning of all the secretions 



the task (profitable as tiresome) of tracing the bu- 
bonic plague, or the significantly named smallpox 
back through their varied stages and changes to 
their original springs may prove the soundness of 
this fact and greatly add to his general store of 
knowledge. No thoughtful and intelligent man 
will honestly contest this truth of the rise and 
spread of disease, plague and physical and mental 
disorder generally through the vices and unnatural 
lives of men. 

The unnatural fermentation in the secretions 
and fluids from which the waste of tissue is sup- 



daily reconstruction of brain and brawn the effects 
of the poison of sin is seen. The very atomic and 
corpuscular formation of tissue is perverted or de- 



Moral wrong is 
a well-spring ot 
physical disease. 



and fluids from which the waste 
of tissue is daily supplied. 
Anyone who will put himself to 



secretions. 



A malformation 
of tissue caused 
by an unnatural 
brew in the 



plied causes the remade matter 
to be abnormally developed 
from a poisoned or an unnatural 
substance, so that even in the 



20 



THE GOSPEL OF 



formed and it becomes amalformation in its process of 
upbuilding. This malformation of tissue is the 
retribution for sin. 

Look closely into the bloated and inflamed face 
of the drunkard and be not faithless but believing. 



equally true of the libertine in his emaciating of his 
system; and this poisoning or impoverishing pro- 
cess in greater or less degree exists in all sin. A 
night or even an hour of debauch is often followed 
almost instantly with chills, fevers, headaches, etc. 
Stagnant stomachs, lazy livers, and arrested or un- 
naturally accelerated circulation, resulting in vari- 
ous diseases are the natural fruits of such unnat- 
ural and sinful lives. 

We ask the physiological skeptic, why does the 
drunkard's face swell? why does the debauchee's 
some. knotty head ache? why does a fit of 



sane, or fretting consume the flesh from a woman's 
bones, if investigation is mistaken in showing that 
there is an unnatural brew in the secretions caused 
by the sinful act. All nature rebels against the 
abnormal element of badness, and functional discord 
and death are the result. What causes the strong, 



The drunkard or 
the libertine as 
an object lesson 
on cause and 
effect. 



Not the drunkard's face alone, 
but every part of his body and 
mind inside and out is thus in- 
flamed and poisoned. This is 



questions for the 
physiological 
skeptic. 



anger upset his own stomach? 
Why does worry drive men in- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 21 

offensive odor around a violently angry person or a 
debauchee? It is caused by nature's effort to 
throw off the poisonous matter with which he has 
filled all the secretions of his body. If it were not 
for this benign provision of nature, death would be 
the certain result. 

Science when sound declares that sin is suicidal 
and unholiness is hell in nature and degree. What 
Tnere was a Swedenborg said he saw in a 

Fn the mad e nes 0 s d of vision of the inquisitorial angels 

Swedenborg. ^ deyils running their fingers 

and eyes over the physical and spiritual members 
of blessed and damned spirits to find in the very 
physical and spiritual element before and after 
death, records and measures of their virtue or vice, 
seems more scientific than silly today. 

If this is true of vice, it goes without saying that 
the very reverse is true of virtue and of holy living 
generally. Also, if the forego- 

What is true of 7 . „ ... 

vice is conversely mg is true of one individual, it 

true of virtue. 

becomes equally true of a com- 
munity, state or nation; and these distempers being 
largely transmittible are handed down through off- 
spring to future generations, till it is no wonder the 
world is a reeking hot-bed of ignorance, disease and 
pain and society is in danger of being disorganized 
by sin in its mental and physical as well as its 
moral influences. In either sphere vice or virtue 
demands retribution or remuneration. 



22 



THE GOSPEL OF 



We have been looking on the physical conse- 
quences, for ignorant men can be more easily shown 
the results of sin in this realm; but a more terrible 
The spiritual and state of distemper is begotten 



passions perverted, the imaginations inflamed, the 
reason partially dethroned, the fears and prejudices 
crowned, the judgment unbalanced, the affections 
alloyed by lust, the passions and appetites contend- 
ing with the judgment, the will clamoring for wrong 
ends, infidelity and ignorance of spiritual things 
boasting a superior knowledge than intelligence 
and faith and the whole realm of the spiritual man 
thrown into a most confused and unnatural state 
by this unnatural and devilish element of sin. 

Badness therefore is a discordant element in 
both the natural and spiritual realms, if indeed a 



gives a being to conspires to curse the man who 



of sin into being. Gould inspiration have done less 
than to have anticipated science and declared, "The 
wages of sin is death." 

If, as laboratory experiments prove, the whole 
human structure can be changed very rapidly, for 
health or disease, by spiritual influences and pas- 
sions, as well as by physical influences and actions,. 



mental results of 
sin worse than 
physical results. 



in the invisible spirit of the sin- 
ner. The will is wrecked, the 



All nature con- 
spires to curse 
the man who 



line of distinction can be made 
between them; and all nature 



brings the discordant element 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 25 

who will deny that the real science must necessar- 
ily be divine? The spirit often must be purged and 
kept free from its transmittible 

Tlie cause of dis- . 

ease must be the moral miasma and ethereal 

key to its cure. 

poison, if exemption from the 
physical effects would be enjoyed. No pill-poison- 
ing quackery can dodge this mighty truth. 

Ignorance, the spring of all superstition, instead 
of recognizing that disease is the direct or indirect 

fruit and proof of a breach of 

Dirty diet or bad 

behavior the nature's law, and seeking out 

cause of disease. 

and correcting the cause of the 
trouble, rushes off in blind unbelief for chemical 
poisons and medical mud to doctor the symptoms. 
Nature has been outraged and the blood poisoned 
by dirty diet or bad behavior, and ignorance would 
add more dirt and poison as a cure. 

The v/orld is greatly in need of two new reme- 
dies. The people's brains need medicating with 
one and the doctors' conscience with the other, 
and some of the D. Ds. as well as the M. Ds. of vari- 
ous orders need attention, that both professions be 
purged. 

Surely it is written, God's "people perish for lack 
of knowledge." Pain is nature's rational protest 
against violated law, and her 

Pain as nature's 

protest acainst voice should not be stifled until 

violated law. 

the outrage against which she is 
crying is stopped. Then, when the lesson is learned 



24 THE GOSPEL OF 

and transgression ceases, God can be confidently 
appealed to in the name of Jesus, for healing. To 
be healed before this lesson is learned would be a 
misfortune. In that case, the absence of the 
disease would be a greater calamity than the 
disease itself. 

On this principle of our mental and physical 
bodies being made the register of the good and evil 
The compensa- of our passions and choices, we 
o? j^Jgmeut^ay can see how the decisions of 

decisions. , , , T , , , , 

the great Judgment day can be 
accurately arrived at with ease. A compensatory 
principle with retributive and accurate hand regis- 
ters the fact on the very physical tissue. The 
purging or poisoning process is self-detecting in 
that it stamps its very nature, whether divine or 
diabolical, upon the organism. The particular 
revelation of this far-reaching fact in the eternal 
judgment hour will be nothing more than the literal 
"opening of the books" of which the Revelator 
speaks; and each person will be seen to have been 
his own scribe, while both his conscience and his 
countenance were the tablets upon which he wrote 
with the finger of his choices. 



CHAPTER II. 



On the self-acting principle of true reward and 
punishment each soul will soar or sink to the level 
for which it is intrinsically prepared. This natural 
gravitation of the soul to the particular sphere for 
which its earthly choices and actions have pre- 
pared it, will mark the servants of God and the 
devil, by the instincts to good or evil which they 
will have themselves developed- 

Instincts good or 

evil, as title deeds Consequently heaven and hell, 

to lieaven or hell. 

as present states of experience 
are the true title deeds to heaven and hell as future 
places of abode. Jesus said, "The kingdom of 
heaven is within you" and consists in "righteous- 
ness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." In con- 
tradistinction to this, it is written in reference to 
the eternal doom of the wicked, "Death and hell 
were cast into the lake that burneth with fire and 
brimstone." This means that the wicked state of 
experience which is the opposite to righteousness, 
peace and joy is called hell and prepares the soul 
for the lake of spiritual fire and brimstone whichisfe 
place called hell, its essential abode. In an etern- 
ally fixed state the never-dying spirit must live on 



26 



THE GOSPEL OF 



forever in its devilish degeneration or its heavenly 
regeneration, according to its own present choices. 
Oh, the limitless significance of the divine words, 
"Behold, I place before you life and death; choose 
ye." The choice of good or evil is the choice of 
life or death, both now and eternally. 

In both love and hate words are works and works 
are v words. We should be careful what we set our 
affections upon, for that which we ardently love 
becomes in a sense our own by that act. Goodness 
me boomerang alone can appreciate goodness 



light of this fact, foolish men are seen to advertise 
their own shame by letting their envy, jealousy or 
prejudice blind them to a just recognition and ac- 
knowledgment of manifest worth. Prejudice actu- 
ally poisons its possessor, while jealousy and envy 
are as suicidal as slander. This law of association 
so regulates the lives of men, that in its last analy- 
sis it makes them merit what they receive and re- 
ceive what they merit. He who deserves happiness 
cannot long be kept miserable and he who deserves 
misery cannot long be kept happy, for both virtue 
and vice are their own paymasters. 

One can no more escape the physical and spiritu- 
al consequences of his affections, desires and ac- 
tions, than he can dodge the decisions of the eternal 
judgment hour, unless he repent of his sin and be- 



The boomerang: 
po wer of choice 
and. action in 
true retribution. 



and a due recognition of great- 
ness is greatness itself. In the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

lieve God for the blessing of a divine healing of soul 
and body. In every case of true spiritual blessing 
roily to tease there is a well-defined case of 

?n°^untn hiJconl partial physical healing, in the 

ditionsare met. removing of local fevers> chiUs 

and inactivity of functions. To hope that any ritu- 
alistic performances can nullify this essential fact, 
is rank superstition; and to pray that God will bless 
those who neglect the medium of blessing in right- 
eous living is the shame of a heartless religion. 
There is no use to tease God for a blessing, unless 
the life be harmonized with the request. It is writ- 
ten, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord wil 
not hear me." 

Right relations to God and nature form the basis 
of both health and happiness. Wisdom does not 
waste its time in coaxing the Lord to do differently 
Bigiitreiationsto while bad conditions remain 
the iSSfs ofde- e willfully unchanged by us. She 

liverance. . £ , , 

recognizes the fact that even 
God is bound by law and could not possibly have 
decided to do as he is doing in permitting our 
afflictions, only as driven to the decision by condi- 
tions that we have ignorantly or knowingly per- 
mitted to come into our lives. She recognizes that 
her hope of deliverance lies in seeking out as far as 
possible the discordancy and rectifying those con- 
ditions upon which God's providential actions are 
based. While those conditions remain unchanged 



28 



THE GOSPEL OF 



His very attributes and the essential elements in 
the caso force a God of order to continue his 
afflictive providences even to death itself in many 
cases. Yet, "He doth not afflict willingly," it is 
written, but of necessity, to force us to cease our 
transgressions either in spiritual or natural things. 

Surely, as God has said, "The children of this 
world are wiser in their generation than the 
children of light." The church has ever been 
prone to formalize on fossilized truth; while 
science owes both its life and success to its vigor- 
ous thought and audacious investigation. Inven- 
tions, as benign as novel, are ever startling the 
sleepy world, as fruits of some one's noble and 
laborious thought. 

There is no real distinction between sacred and 
secular affairs, or between spiritual and temporal 



ah truth is theo- truth in the sight of God. All 



its real rise in inspiration, and comes primarily from 
the heart of Him v/ho said, "I am the way, the 
truth and the life." 

The fact of their having separate causes is the 
shame and defeat of both the theologian and the 
philanthropist. Their causes are primarily one and 
will never succeed until they are re-united in holy 
wedlock. The divorcing of these two "better 
halves" of this divine mosaic leaves theology and 



logical and iu 
some sense sav- 
ing. 



truth is in some sense theologi- 
cal and saving. All truth has 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



29 



philanthropy respectively, as a gainless lover of 
God and a Godless lover of gain. 

The heart of Jesus is the world's real seminary, 
power-house and treasure-store; and the thought- 
ful, believing, worshipful student of any line of 
truth will receive inspirations 

Science bnt the 

reflected light of therefrom today, whether a de- 

1 inspiration. Wis- 
dom a donation funct theology endorses them 
from deity. OJ 

or not. This fact gives us the 
reason why such a large per cent of our valuable 
inventions is the work of believers in the true God. 
Wisdom and knowledge are enumerated among the 
gifts of the Spirit in the Bible; this is significant, 
for they are a wage from the schools, but a gift from 
the Lord, direct. This fact of wisdom and know- 
ledge being a donation from Deity is in perfect 
harmony with the Savior's words, "When He, the 
Spirit of truth is come, He will lead you into all 
truth and show you things to come." Truth re- 
ceived through direct inspiration is a solar light; 
while truth received through the laborous method 
of the schools, is but lunar light at best. He who 
is called the "Sun of Righteousness" said, "I am 
the light (intelligence) of the world." 

An awakened church, under the Holy Spirit's 
guidance, will yet arouse from her lethargy, repent 
of her unbelieving formalism and through believing, 
thoughtful aggression will make practical and glori- 
ous use of every scientific fact, and divinely sug- 
gested possibility. 



30 THE GOSPEL OF 

Aimlessness is senselessness and the scatterer 
necessarily degenerates into a courageless shirk. 

Excessive love for leisure is 
of the animaiiza- laxity, almost an unpardonable 

tion of the life. J ' * 

sin. Of laziness it can almost 
be said it "hath never forgiveness, in this life nor in 
that which is to come." While the mind is made 
the mere servant of the body, rather than of the 
soul no man can be said to be fully awakened. 
This mere animalizing of the life would not be per- 
mitted, if the man was awakened to the glorious 
possibility within his reach. His ignorance is his 
slavery. Thought, inspiration, lofty choices alone 
can save him, by bringing him, through faith, into 
contact with God. The truly awakened man, the 
idealist, is one who has reversed the above order 
and who makes his body, his gross animal life, a 
living sacrifice to, and servant of his ideal, mental 
or spiritual life. To the extent that he goes, he 

thus meets the end of life. He 

Temporal life as 

an embryo of an accomplishes the real business 

eternal sphere. 

for which he was born, by de- 
riving eternal profit from the possibilities of time, 
through the development of his true spiritual life. 
He looks upon his present life as an embryo of a 
nobler, eternal sphere into which he shall be born 
at his exit from earth. He may not see all this, 
but he is acting in harmony with this principle. 
Unless a man is thoroughly aroused and so 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



31 



enamored by his ideal as to make his body a living 
sacrifice to its accomplishment, he has no promise 
of ultimate success. His ideal should be worthy 



vant, he is not truly awakened; he is not an idealist, 
but a rational animal. The mere hireling cannot 
understand this. Bread and butter and animal 
comforts are his highest conceptions. He has 
ASpirations, but no INspirations. When a man is 
possessed by his ideal, rather than possessing it, his 
genius buds and blossoms, his talents sprout, as far 
as his ideal is concerned and its safety is thus 
secured. A good heart makes a wise head, gener- 
ally. This is the true foundation of genius. Ideals 
are purchased by passion and never by gold. 
Idealism is not in the market for hire. It is as 
unpurchasable as love itself, for it is the fruit, the 
offspring of love. A man may hire out his body 
and mind, but the spirit life, the true heart of the 
man is above wages and scorns a paid servitude. 

This is why the mere hireling is never a system- 
builder; he may shine but he never burns. Here is 
the secret of the guilt of infidelity. The word 
means one who has abandoned his fidelity, one who 
is untrue. There is placed primarily in every 
human heart a desire and a capacity to know God 
and succeed. Integrity to this principle is true 



Idealism as the 
source of true 
genius. 



of the price; but unless it en- 
slaves him to itself, so that 
sleeping or waking, he is its ser- 



32 THE GOSPEL OF 

genius, idealism. Fidelity to this truth will be re- 
warded by the honest actor's being providentially 
led to the light of faith in Jesus, and to see the 
plan of successful action in 
?2Sm? and flSth reference to the realization of 

a virtue. ^ T N _ fidelity to this 

principle proves the presence of a wicked, deceiv- 
ing, blinding desire. In punishing infidelity, God is 
but indirectly punishing this unholy affection and 
choice. In rewarding faith, He is but honoring 
holy affections and a magnanimous choice. 

The fearful and unbelieving are consequently 
placed in the very van of that infidel throng, whom 
the Bible describes as bound 
empryotic ins- f or eternal defeat, remorse and 

clelity and death. 

death. "He that overcometh 
shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and 
he shall be my son; but the fearful and unbelieving, 
and the abominable and murderers, and whore- 
mongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars 
shall have their part in the lake that burneth with 
fire and brimstone; which is the second death." 

The following from Joseph Cook's popular Bos- 
ton lectures on biology is significantly true: 

"In the nervous mechanism there are two kinds 
of fibres, called by physiologists the automatic arcs 
and the influential arcs. In all physiology, outside 
of the supreme topic of bioplasm, I know of nothing 
which is as suggestive as this contrast between the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



33 



automatic and the influential nerve arcs. Plants 
and many animals possess only the automatic arcs. 
Tue contrast be- Such organizations as possess 
flulntiaflnd" au- only the automatic arcs are 

tomaticnerves. automata; andj although 

they have life, they cannot, in the strict sense of 
the word, be said to possess souls, including free- 
will and conscience. 

The contrast between the influential and the 
automatic is that between freedom and necessity. 
The contrast be- !t is that between man, with the 
a7o e n SnTaToiunl power of choice, and your poor 
s honey-bee, who is supposed to 

work as an automaton. The bee has not the 
influential arc — it has only the automatic nerves. 
Accordingly, by instinct, it has built its cells in the 
same way age after age. Two bees, under pre- 
cisely the same circumstances will do precisely the 
same things. The power of habit, and, to a great 
extent, that of emotion, depends on the action of 
the automatic arcs. Your Phillips,your Everett,your 
Sumner,your Webster,have scarred into theirnervous 
systems good literary habits. You know very well 
that a scar will not wash out, or grow out. Abso- 
lutely there is no doubt about this. How vast and 
fathomlessly practical are the applications of the 
simple truth that scars are inerasible. A two- 
edged sword this, and keener than Damascus steel. 

Your dull inebriate who sears his brain by the 
CE3 



THe GOSPEL OF 



habit of intemperance, thinks that after his 
reformation, his nervous system will slowly recover 



a scar will not grow out. Here are scars which 
were made when my fingers were too young to be 
trusted with edged tools; but, although the parti- 
cles of my body have changed many times since 
then, the scars are here, reproduced with the 
reproduction of the particles of the body. 

Once in seven years we have a new body, the 
books used to say: once in twelve months, as they 



unchangeable in the changing flesh. We carry into 
our graves the marks of boyhood sports; and this is 
true, if you please, of the sports that scar the 
brain as of those that gash the fingers. The most 
searching blessing on good habits, the most pene- 
trating curse on bad, is found in the fact, that the 
automatic nervous mechanism is such, that when a 
habit, good or bad, is scarred into the nerves and 
brain, the soul pours forth the result of the habit 
almost spontaneously, The influential, can indeed 
hold back the activity of the automatic arcs. 

Dr. Carpenter explicitly teaches, that the in- 
fluential nerve arcs may resist, 'keep in check and 



Nerves scarred 
by habit and the 
incurable re- 
sults. 



all the soundness it once had. 
But in your finger a scar will 
not grow out; and on your brain 



A blessing or 
curse on good or 
bad habits. 



say now, the particles of our 
physical system are changed. 
Scars, however, are absolutely 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 35 

modify' the action of the automatic nervous 
mechanism. You have scarred your nervous 
system with an evil habit; and now this terrible 
power of the automatic mechanism stands behind 
your will. Prof. Huxley states, that once an old 
The grooving of soldier, who "had been accus- 
enliaving a Sf m% tomed all his life to come to a 
man by habit. perfectly erect attitude at the 
word 'attention!' was carrying home his dinner on 
a London street, when a comrade, who desired 
sport, called out to him from the other side of the 
way, 'Attention!' Instantly the inattentive sol- 
dier came into the upright attitude, and dropped 
his dinner in the street. Force is everywhere of 
spiritual origin." 

"Several years ago the 'Popular Science Monthly' 
gave an extract from a sermon by G. R. Dodson of 
California, from which," writes Rev. T. K. Doty of 
Cleveland, Ohio, who fully endorses this position, "I 
made the following extracts, which, you will see, 
agree with Cook's Biology:" — 'Repetition makes 
action easier. The nerve currents meet with con- 
siderable resistance at first; but 

The result of true 

or faise^tninking by repeatedly going over the 
same paths, they hew out and 
widen the ways, so to speak, until they become 
lines of small resistance, and the action becomes 
easy. Nerve paths used constantly in true think- 
ing and noble sentiment, become the lines of the 



56 THE GOSPEL OF 

least resistance; while those for ignoble thought 
and feeling become unseen, neglected roads, diffi- 
cult to travel." "When evil thoughts are aroused 
they are at once automatically negatived (inhibited) 
by good impulses; and without any action of the 
will, there is an. instant recoil from evil sugges- 
tions.'" 

There is philosophy in the fact that we are told 
to attend to our salvation early in life. The 
irreparable loss of years of holy 
forced to acknow- and helpf uldevelopment, and the 

ledge the truth 

an<r wisdom of hindrance of years of unholy and 

tiie gospel. J ■* 

hurtful development, are both 
sustained by the procrastinator,evenif he should ever 
become truly religious. Forinstance,letus take a pair 
of twin boys, raised and educated together. At the 
age of ten, one chooses the path of virtue and the 
other the path of vice. Fifty years later the latter 
becomes a Ghristian. Now they are both God's 
true children, but in experience they are far from 
being twins. One is a mere moral infant and the 
other a strong, well-developed man in Christ Jesus. 
The difference is not merely moral, but tangible as 
well. Let a reliable phrenologist examine the 
heads of these two men, and without knowing any- 
thing of their life or relationships, he will tell you 
of one brain being developed in the finer benevolent 
qualities at the top of the head; and the other 
largely developed in the back of the head, where 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. Z7 

the baser animal qualities centre. "As one star 
differeth from another star in glory, so shall it be 
in the resurrection of the just;" and the reverse of 
this applies to the unjust, who limit or extend their 
degree of punishment by the character of their sin. 
Herein lies a mighty motive to early piety of life 
and a fearful warning to the procrastinator. 



CHAPTER III. 



Satan's suggestion in reference to God's com- 
mandments is that an arbitrary tyrant is robbing us 
of our legitimate joys by his prohibitory enactments; 
whereas in fact, our highest good for two worlds 
was the very motive that inspired the plan of our 
all-benevolent and omniscient Father. The work- 
ing out of that plan called for those mandatory re- 
quirements and their breach must necessarily bring 
loss to the transgressor. His ignorance of the con- 
sequence of his actions may 
Sp 8 Mn di Cs C ines S s . keep him guiltless in a theologi- 
cal sense; but unless God works 
a miracle, it does not save him from the physical 
consequences of transgression. For instance, I 
desire to send my child on an errand. There are 
two parallel streets leading to the goal; but from 
the peculiar lay of the land it is up hill nearly all the 
way there, by one of those streets, and down hill 
by the other. I have no time to explain this fact 
to my child, so, instead of an explanation, I advise 
him to go by the particular street which I designate 
and to return by the other. If he keeps this com- 
mand, he not only proves his obedience but also 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 39 

proves his faith in his father's wisdom and good- 
ness; and his present reward is, he has an easy, 
down hill ride both ways for his bicycle; and his 
spiritual reward is, he has the approbation of his 
own conscience and a disposition developed in a 
love for obedience. If he breaks 

The way of the 

transgressor is this command he is cursed with 

hard. 

a reversal of all those conse- 
quences. His disobedience is a substitution of his 
own ignorance and wilfulness for my wisdom and 
love, and in the essential nature of things he can- 
not escape the fruit of his doings. This is an 
exact parallel to the divine Father's commands. 
Sinning and repenting is up hill business and hard 
going, both ways. "The way of the transgressor is 
hard." 

The promise of blessing or curse is based on this 
principle of the harvest's being similar to the seed, 
and agriculture may fear for its 

The mathemati- 
cal accuracy of fruition or geometry itself may 

God's dealings. J J 

blush for its findings, in com- 
parison to the mathematical accuracy with which 
God fulfills his promise or his threat. Men should 
quickly renounce that sin and depravity that makes 
a hell fire and brimstone lake of remorse and 
anguish a physical, mental and spiritual necessity, 
here and hereafter. On the other hand they should 
adopt that life of purity and righteousness that 
makes a harmonious heaven of health and happi- 



40 



THE GOSPEL OF 



ness a possibility for body, mind and spirit in time 
and eternity. The command to "lay aside" every 
weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, 
implies that we have the power to keep the com- 
mand. God desires and empowers men to make 
their surroundings wisely congenial, that their re- 
actionary influences might be a blessing to them- 
selves. A home made uncongenial and full of dis- 
cordancies generally strikes back at the maker of 
those conditions, by moulding his life after their 
own natures. 

I would not, for the world, have my readers lose 
sight of the fact that there is a supernatural, 
prayer-hearing and answering God. I am endeav- 



natural avenue of blessing is opened up to the 
obedient believer. Apart from Christ's redemption, 
a prayer meeting would be as feelingless as a for- 
mal church and the prayer answers as slow in com- 
ing as modern politics is in bringing prosperity to 
the poor. 

A miracle is not really a suspension of the laws 
of nature so-called as some admit, but rather the 
operation of a higher law. The believers in the 
miraculous have made a fatal concession when 
they admit that a miracle is a suspension of natural 
order, for, though a rule may be, a law, if properly 



A natural and a 

supernatural 

mode. 



oring to show only the natural 
course and principle of things. 
In Christ a new and super- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 41 

named, is never suspended. Is it a suspension or 
reversal of the law of gravity to shoot a rifle ball 
up into the air? By no means; it is merely the 
activity of a higher law set in motion by the will of 
the actor. The law of gravity is acting on that 
ascending ball all the time, as is evident from the 
fact that it eventually comes back to earth. 
Natural law is made subordinate to the human will 
and all mind feels its right to subject the elastic 
powers of inanimate substances to its choice. 
Thus the true end of life is to excel in this very 
subordination of matter to mind. God likewise in 
all his spiritual and miraculous actions does and 
has a right to do this and no more. Who can cavil 
at this? 

Where a greater blessing than the natural order 
is desired and needed, nature's Author has never 

hesitated to assert his author- 
Nature is but an 

every day mira- ity by doubling her back upon 
herself through the operation 
of higher law till the end was accomplished. Thus 
it v/as in the turning of water into wine by the 
Savior, and the multiplying of the bread and fish. 
Christ was the originator of nature's law, and con- 
sequently the embodiment of it. He brought about 
the same results here through a shorter process. 
Nature is but the supernatural in a longer process; 
and it is in reality as great a miracle for the vine to 
turn water into luscious grape clusters or purple 



42 THE GOSPEL OF 

juice as it was for Jesus to do so instantly. It is 
really as miraculous for the spawning of two fishes 
or the wheat that would make five loaves to multiply 
the stock in a few years to feed five thousand, as it 
was for Jesus to do it in a few minutes. We call 
the one power natural, because we are used to it, 
and the other miraculous because we are not; but 
either process is a miracle, and no living man can 
fully explain either the natural or the supernatural 
principle. He who would discard the miraculous 
would discard everything, for all things are in a 
sense beyond our knowledge. Even our own life — 
body, mind and spirit, is a miracle. 

If, as is generally admitted, the repetition of a 
passage of Scripture is intended for emphasis and 
to give special prominence to 

Food in its native , 

elements pienti- its truth, there must be par- 
tui. The origin 

of milk and ticular significance in the fact 

honey. 

that seventeen different pas- 
sages in the word of God speak of a land flowing 
with milk and honey. He also adds "The mount- 
ains drop down new wine." It would be a small 
thing, even from what we sometimes term a natural 
standpoint, for the Almighty to do this. The ele- 
ments that go to make up milk, honey and grape 
juice, are largely aqueous, and in their crude form 
abound on every side. If separated from the other 
elements with which they are combined, they could 
literally "flow" through the land. Milk is not 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 45 

necessarily an animal product; it is an emulsion 
found in grass seeds and vegetation generally. 
Honey is not necessarily a product of either bees 
or flowers; it is as universal an element as the 
dewy vapor from which it is distilled. The trans- 
formed vapor called grape juice is not necessarily a 
vegetable product. 

What is a cow but a treadmill apparatus with 
which God milks the hills for man? What is a bee 
but a vital, intelligent element in nature, no more 
wonderful and accurate in its 

The God of nature 

is independent of actions than the invisible ele- 

the bee or cow. 

ments are in placing the nec- 
tarous substance in the floral cells for the bee's 
harvesting. A grape vine is a mere animated 
artifice of nature which transforms the rain drops 
and the dew into sparkling purple juice, the life- 
blood of the grape. This process, as we have said, 
is really as miraculous as were the actions of Jesus 
at the wedding in Galilee. Rudimentally, neither of 
these three articles of diet are animal or even 
vegetable products, but largely a natural aqueous 
element that can be extracted in fairly good form 
from their native substances both vaporous and 
vegetable by artificial appliances, without the 
mediation of the vine or flower, the bee or cow. 

Who is bold enough to say that the Author of 
nature's law, who has thus loaded the elements of 
earth with these rare articles of diet in the crude 



44 THE GOSPEL OF 

form cannot or will not yet produce them in great 
abundance, either with or without the medium of 
their present presentation? All things are really 
miraculous; yesterday's wonders are common ac- 
complishments today in both the vegetable and 
animal world: yes and in the soul realm as well. 

Our thoughts, words and actions not only mould 
us, but they largely help to mould those around us. 
Investigation has proven that the temper of a bad 

dog, a lion or a spirited horse is 
tt>r p benevoieSce* always made appreciably worse 

by harsh words or unkind usage. 
The pulse is raised from one to ten beats per 
minute and the blood sent leaping through the 
veins with an unnatural speed, by the act or word 
that influenced and inflamed the spirit of the 
creature. On the other hand, all truly docile or 
broken-spirited creatures are seen to correspondingly 
drop the normal pulse beats,lose their rapidity of blood 
circulation, while the whole animal spirit seems 
largely crushed by the unkind word or act, which 
seemed to freeze the very blood in the poor things' 
veins. This condition of unnatural animation lasts 
at times for several days and it is to be doubted if 
its effects ever entirely disappear. If this be true 
of a dumb brute, how much greater must it be of 
the human soul and body, with their finer sensi- 
bilities? What terrible responsibility it places 
upon thoughtless, heartless persons, who are con- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



45 



stantly using spirit-freezing or frenzying words or 
actions. What a mighty plea for kindness and 
benevolence in word and act to man and beast this 
truth should prove. 

This fearful, spiritual force, which ignoramuses 
call the mind's influence over matter, but which is 
really the Spirit's influence over 

The Spirit's in- 
fluence over botli both mind and matter, is in 
mind and matter. 

reality theological, rather than 
psychological; it is spiritual rather than mental or 
physical in its nature. One says he does not be- 
lieve in such a power, yet he grows cold, trembles 
and turns pale, loses his appetite, or faints away on 
receiving bad news. On the other hand, good 
news makes one appreciably warmer, redder of 
cheek, puts more fire in his eye, the step becomes 
more elastic, the whole body partakes of a healthy 
tone from that spirit-reviving news, which was 
received, and these effects are not transient, but 
partially remain. 

Heat and cold are scientifically described as be- 
ing states of life and death. Gourage and fear 

produce heat and cold, respec- 

The life and death . _ 

producing quaii- tively. These are but modern 

ties of courage 

fve^y ear ' respect " terms for the theological terms 
of faith and unbelief; conse- 
quently, from a scientific standpoint, faith is rudi- 
mental life, and unbelief is embryotic death. Be- 
lieve and live, doubt and die, is the language of the 
scientist, no less than the theologian. 



46 



THe GOSPEL OF 



As God has said, "All things are possible to him 
that believeth;" because faith, where real, must be 
preceded by thought and investigation and becomes 
a motive force to make man choose and act; and 
the reward shall be in measure "according to his 



truly as conception is a proof of the possibility of 
birth, so truly is idealization a proof and promise 
that realization can follow. 

Whether in physical or spiritual affairs, the real 
poverty is the poverty of desire. As the old prov- 



ao°t W anz°e U s S itseif. there's a way." The thought, 



choice, have the power to actualize themselves and 
transform themselves into realities, glorious or 
grovelling, according to their intrinsic nature. The 
intensity of our love or its lack is largely proven by 
the measure of our success. There is no dodging 
the responsibility. The heavenly recorder cannot 
make a mistake, for the actor is his own scribe and 
the physical result is but the record of his choice. 

I make no provision for mistakes, for a subtle 
wisdom, sufficient for its development is always 
born with the true ideal. If from our hearts, we do 
our own work in our own way, we succeed. It is 
when we look around for precedents and examples 



Faith but a mo- 
tive power to 
works. 



works." But the works are seen 
to be both the proof and fruit of 
his thoughts and his faith. As 



erb says, "Where there's a will, 



the ideal desire, the desperate 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 47 

and go nosing around to see how our neighbors do, 
that we fail. And we deserve to fail for our mim- 
icry, and hampering our shep- 

Independence or . . 

death. Mimicry herd lad in a kings harness 

is sure of defeat. 

when he has a Goliath to kill. 
The disposition to depend on established prece- 
dents and be unduly influenced in our deci- 
sions and undertakings by the accomplishments of 
our predecesors is a paralyzing power. It puts an 
incubus on lofty decisions and an embargo on true 
advancement and reverses the wheels of progress 
for a backward revolution. The degradation 
of the rankest heathenism in Ghina or India is 

the fruit of this fallacy, as it is 

Fools only, follow ,. . 

precedents ai- based upon this neutralizing 

ways. 

principle, when fossilized into 
ancestral worship, or undue reverence for departed 
grandsires. Whether in spiritual, mental or physical 
affairs, in individuals or the masses, it is a vampire 
that subsists upon the noblest blood of the body 
that gives it license to live. Wise men establish 
precedents, only fools follow them always. The 
old apostle wrote, "Forgetting the things that are 
behind, we press forward," etc. A backward gaze 
is the death of hope and progress. Dying nations 
are all and always looking back to their good 
grandfathers and great heroes. This backward 
glance is the power in their retrograde progress. 
This deification of the dead, forms the foundation 



48 THE GOSPEL OF 

for the sacred cannonizing of real or imaginary 
saints and heroes, by both Papists and Protestants 
True progress, either in the individual or the nation 
places its hope in the future. Hope is the inspirer 
of action; and action is the foundation of success. 
Look into the future and make it what you will. 
Even "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence 
and the violent take it by force." 

Independence and a divine self-confidence are 
essentials to success in any undertaking. Peter 
- on the sea of Galilee was not the 

A a 1 vi nc self-con- 
fidence the basis only man who, after a daring 

ol success. J ° 

decision, removed his eyes from 
the ideal embodiment of truth, and considered the 
waves until his courage and faith failed. The 
idealist is the true revolutionist, the system-maker, 
the world ruler, the savior, when his idealism is 
coupled with wise and energetic action. 

The idealist is a man who lives significantly in 
his upper and fore head. He is an exalted, forward 

man, a pusher, a constructionist. 

What makes the 

ciphers and fig- The fact that the mere cor- 

ures among men. 

porealist lives in the exercise of 
the back and lower parts of his brain is significant. 
He is always down and behind hand as a conse- 
quence. The mere animal nature in which he lives 
relegates him to the rank of absolute ciphers, in 
contradistinction to the figure the idealist becomes. 
Thank God, there is ample assistance in his 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



49 



abundant provision for all those who will make the 
magnanimous choice. Since in all ignoble passions, 
unworthy decisions and base transactions, the 
actor is seen to be the greatest sufferer, it would 
seem to be apparent that even ignorance would 
learn to do right, for the sake of self-preservation. 
But this subtle, compensatory principle, that makes 
benevolence its own reward, and penuriousness its 
own punishment, in the development of the par- 
ticular qualities exercised, is entirely overlooked by 
the thoughtless throng. When it takes as much 
self-sacrifice to be a miser as it does to be a martyr 
is he not foolish who makes the former choice? 

The purging power of a loftier love and a holier 
ideal, is the element in God's mode of operation to 
bless a blasted life. As in 

The purging 

Fove er of a lofty electricity the production of a 
positive current becomes the 
negation of the negative current, by taking its ter- 
ritory; or as the infusion of light or life destroys 
the darkness or disorganizes death. To cease to 
do evil we must learn to do well, and Satan must be 
abandoned ere the Savior can be found. The 
creation or exhibition of virtue is by its own means 
the annihilation of vice. The inspiration of a lofty 
purpose and a noble resolve is the seed of success. 
A purposeless man is a mental or moral mollusk 
without aim or energy, because void of vertebrae. 

God has said, ''As a man thinketh in his heart so is 
OE4 



50 



THE GOSPEL OF 



he." Who can grasp the eternal importance of a 
thought, a choice? It has a magic power to raise 
or sink the soul to its own level, to color it with its 
own dye and to mould it in its own shape, be that 
groveling or glorious. Thoughts taint the whole 
life with their flavor and unawed by graveyard ter- 
rors in their results they pass with the soul the 
confines of time, and continue as the spirit's con- 
sorts in eternity. 

If one could trace the joys of the glorified or the 
terrors of the lost, back to their true sources, they 



We do not need to be in doubt about the bliss or 
blight of our eternal abode or our temporal future 
either; a true diagnosis of one's present thoughts, 
desires and choices, in their worthiness or unworthi- 
ness, is an unfailing indication of the nature of their 
future sphere. 

Ghoice is the title deed to eternal abodes whose 
moral characters are designated by its own. Feel 
invoice your tme the pulse of your passions as 



member that the pangs of disease or the pleasures 
of health, the glories of heaven or the horrors of 
hell, are but the finding by the soul of its own true 
sphere, for which it has previously prepared itself 
in its choices. 



A diagnosis of the 
desires reveals 
our future state. 



would be seen to have their rise 
in the noble or ignoble thoughts 
in which the soul delighted. 



worth by feeling 
the pulse of your 
passions. 



they sink or soar, if you would 
invoice your real worth; and re- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 5 1 

Regeneracy or degeneracy is heaven or hell in 
prospect. Thoughts or affections are photographed 
on the tablets of the soul, like 

The nature of our . J .. , - . 

affections photo- pictures upon the chemically 

graphed on the 

tablets of the prepared plate of the photog- 

rapher; only, we write in time 
what we must enjoy or endure in eternity, and we 
have the power to say whether the results will be 
devilish discordancies or heavenly harmonies. Mem- 
ory, the camera of the soul, has a mathemetical ac- 
curacy that is fearful to contemplate. 

In the nobility of our thoughts and the purity and 
loftiness of our choices and actions, we can annex 
as much of the golden plains of 

The joys or sor- . 

rows of today but heaven to our particular plot, as 

the harvest of , . 

yesterday's do- we please, or by limiting our de- 
sires and actions we can minify 
our "inheritance among the saints" to a speck. 
Since the actions of today are seen to be but the 
fruition of the affections of yesterday, and the ex- 
periences of eternity to be but the harvest of the 
desires of time, who can help but see the wisdom of 
the divine admonition, "Son, give me thy heart." 
Feed your heart and soul on lofty divine truth, for 
noble, truth-revealing thought makes noble, truth- 
declaring men; while groveling thoughts their auth- 
ors curse. A great man or a great movement is al- 
ways the fruit of great thought and noble, self-sac- 
rificing action. Thought is choice in blossom, and 



52 THE GOSPEL 0? 

choice whether great or small, is but achievement 
in the larva. If noble ideal thought and choice is 
not life itself it is at least the only true develop- 
ment of it. Our thoughts, affections and choices 
are the creators of our ideals, and as these ideals 
mould our natures, they are fundamentally the 
fountain of our joys or sorrows, and the river-bed 
of our lives. 

It is asadfact,thatforall intellectual purposes,some 
people might as well have pumpkins on the top of 
Brains fossilized tne i r backbones as the thing 
f^forfeite^bj? 1 " they call a head; for if their 

nonuse. . , ... 

craniums were filled with pump- 
kin seeds, instead of brains, they could see as much 
connection between their thoughts and actions, and 
their sins and sufferings,as they do generally. They 
cannot lay the blame on God, either, for nature did 
not make them fools. Their own activity and men- 
tal inertia have largely fossilized brains which were 
capable of great achievments, had their talents been 
rightly used. 

Noble, inspired thoughts are like birds of para- 
dise, as beautiful as rare. On the principle of nat- 
ural association, he who is un- 

The beneficial re- 
sults of noble loving becomes unlovely as a 

thoughts 

consequence; the hater becomes 
becomes hateful, the lover becomes lovely etc. The 
unalterable law of the universe tends to pay men back 
in their own coin, with interest. Inspiration advises 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 53 

"Whatsoever things are true,honest,just,pure,lovely, 
of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any 
praise,think on these things." There is divine benev- 
olence in the command, since God has said, "Asa 
man thinketh in his heart so is he," Those noble, 
pure, bright and exalted thoughts leave their im- 
press on the mind and soul, in a subtle nobility, pur- 
ity and loftiness of life. 

Besides, if men would always think on those 
lovely traits and, as the command indicates, look 
only for points of agreement, 

A lack of charity * r 

the principle that the greatest differences of earth 

separates. 

would disappear and the wid- 
est chasms that separate men would be spanned 
and enmity would die at the sight of an eternal 
embrace on the part of long separated brothers. 
The arch-enemy of the human race reverses the 
above order and says, "If there be any things dis- 
honest, unjust, impure, unlovely etc., think on these 
things:" and foolish men obey. On the perfect 
working out of this principle, the* dearest friends 
would be hopelessly separated and war and discord 
would make chaos on the globe, for points of differ- 
ence can always be found. The command here 
can be seen to be for our betterment in every way, 
and proves the benevolence and omniscience of a 
heavenly Father. All his other commands are for 
like purposes. 
A real thought is like the Bible description of the 



54 THe GOSPEL OF 

blood of Abel, in that it "speaks" ages after the 
death of its originator, and the effect of the "speech" 
can be only ascertained here by the nature of the 
thought 

What an audacious disturber of the peace, what 
a turbulent revolutionist has a little real consider- 
ation always been. But solid 

Thought as a rev- 
olutionist and re- thought and wise choice are re- 
construction^. 

ally constructionary and recon- 
structionary; mental inactivity has only a destruc- 
tive nature, As our actions are regulated by our 
choices, and in time and eternity men are rewarded 
"according to their works," any one can see the 
mighty influence of a thoughtful or thoughtless de- 
cision. Our own choices, (not the Roman pope), 
seem to be the true vice-gerents of the Almighty, 
and in their harvests of weal or woe they seem to 
be mere reflections of God's righteous judgments. 

There is an unseen element, a subtle power in 
touch with our lives that the mind does not fully 

fathom. There is proven to be 

Our choices and 

affections are almost in our very make-up, an 

self- revealing. 

invisible but almighty witness 
to every thought, desire, word and act, which metes 
out rewards or punishments with an accuracy that 
is astonishing. Gall this ever present and self-act- 
ing principle God, conscience, mental development 
or what you will, but omniscience, omnipresence 
and justice are evident elements in its composition. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. Co 

It is really God in providence bringing about na- 
ture's re-enunciation of the divine warning that 
"whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." 
If there were no other pay or punishment for choices 
glorious or groveling, their fruits in virtue or vice 
are a sufficient reward or chastisement in them- 
selves. Deceive the world by being good and you 
will surprise yourself by becoming great; for though 
greatness is not always based on goodness; good- 
ness is always the nucleus of true greatness. 

This law of natural selection and association, 
which emphasizes the truth of Christ's words, 
"With what measure ye mete 

All nature re- 
peats the words withal, it shall be measured to 

of Christ. ' 

you again," has a larger applica- 
tion than its immediate influence on the animal, 
mental or spiritual powers of the actor. All nature 
seems to fall into line with it and become vocal with 
its re-enunciation. 

The history of the race is but a register of this 
fact. He who robs, slanders, cheats, deceives, op- 
presses, wounds, or in any way 

The harvest will * J J 

sown e the seed wrongs another is preparing 
just such treatment for himself 
sooner or later, with interest. The harvest may be 
late in ripening, but it will surely ripen, and it will 
be a true duplication of one's own doings on a larger 
scale. 



56 THE GOSPEL OF 

"The mills of God grind slowly 
But they grind exceeding small; 

Though with patience He stand waiting; 
With exactness grinds He all/' 

The stupefying power of sin and depravity may 
make men blind to the connection between their sin 
and their suffering, when the harvest comes,but others 
see in their experiences a verifying of the gospel truth 
that men who "sow the wind reap the whirlwind." 
The longer the retribution is in coming, the severer 
it is when it does come. A mighty plowing up of 
the field by practical repentance, alone will hinder 
the harvest and even this does not do away with 
all the physical effects. Some seeds seem to 
mature in spite of all that can be done. 

This compensatory principle is to the ethereal 
world what echo is to the natural; it pays the actor 
back in his own coin; his 

Thoughts are 

seeds from which thoughts, choices, words and 

actions spring. & 

actions rebound in blessings or 
curses, according to the life he infuses into them. 
Considering the fact that our thoughts and choices 
are the seeds from which our actions spring, anyone 
can see the wisdom of the divine request for the 
"unrighteous man" to "forsake his thoughts," lest 
they yield a fearful harvest of actions similarly 
tainted and ruinous. 

It is written, "Delight thyself also in the Lord and 
He shall give thee the desire of thy heart." "All 



CAUSE AND EFFECT 57 

things are possible to him that believeth," and this 
is true of temporal as well as of spiritual things. If 
that young coal digger or hod carrier would but 
Limitless possi- wake up from the nightmare of 
mined s ag|reli er " self-indulgence and the stupor 
of carnal ease, and resolve deep 
down in his heart that he will not always be a mere 
coal digger or hod carrier, but by diligence, frugal- 
ity, intelligence and vigor, force the arrival of a day 
when he will own a coal mine or be a successful con- 
tractor employing scores of others, he can see his 
hope accomplished. The very fates seem to work 
in his favor and nothing can successfully resist his 
iron determination to succeed. After the first few 
brushes with hard luck and adverse surroundings 
and the good sound ear-boxings that he gave his 
circumstances each time, both men and things seem 
to learn to respect this fellow, and as he generally 
succeeds they call him fortunate and think it best 
to be on his side. Such a man is not dependent 
upon plenty of money, favorable circumstances and 
costly, complex machinery for success. From his 
own resources and innate abilities he draws the 
power essential to success, while ninety-six out of 
every hundred fail who depend on those outside 
helps. 

If that dull school boy will but shake off his sloth 
and resolve by God's help to make himself a college 
professor he may do so. If that young convert will 



58 THE GOSPEL OF 

resolve to rise above his mediocrity and excel in 
the wielding of a glorious gospel influence for the 
winning of souls to Ghrist, he can do so. He will 
soon out-grow his present limited sphere and cut a 
wide and telling swath in a larger field which Provi- 
dence will open. 

If that preacher or mission worker will in his pur- 
poses, eternally divorce himself from fleshly pleas- 
ure and carnal ease and truly 

Hope as tlxe proof 

of possible attain- devote himself in faith to the 

ment. 

production of apostolic results, 
there is no power of earth or hell that can hinder 
the attainment of his divine ambitions. The very 
hope is a proof of the possibility of its attainment 
the idealization is a pledge of possible^ealization. 
Here is the only possibility of failure, in the base- 
ness of the ideal or the weakness of the resolve. 
The real poverty of both the church and the world 
is the poverty of ideals and red hot ambitions; the 
absence of burning desires and noble resolves on 
worthy lines. Herein lies every man's failure clear 
up to the preacher of the gospel. Most men aim at 
nothing and they hit "the bull's eye." God says, 
"Where no vision is the people perish." There is a 
great dearth of darling day dreams and heaven- 
inspired visions of lofty and worthy possibilities 
among us. The idealization must precede the reali- 
zation, and the hope alone can inspire the actions 
necessary to attainment. "Impossible" and "I can't" 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 59 

are synonyms for laziness and a groveling spirit. 
Oh, that men would through Christ awake and arise 
in the vigor of a mighty resolve based on a worthy 
desire; and propelled by a divine inspiration to bless, 
both self and others, begin the accomplishment 
of life's true duties. 

It must ever be the case that the truths or falla- 
cies to which we hold, the glorious or grovelling 
ends at which we aim, must make or mar us. 
Since a man's thoughts and choices are both the 
mould and measure of his life, a good motto for all 
would be, Think today or you will sweat tomorrow. 
Reader, if from no higher motive than mere self- 
defence, we must seek lofty and worthy ends and 
do right, or die, for science as well as Scripture de- 
clares, "The wages of sin is death." 



GHAPTER IV. 



Science is no less definite in its declaration and 
overwhelming in its proof that "the gift of God is 
eternal life," than it is in its assertion that "the 
wages of sin is death." Scripture and science 
must ever be the greatest proof of the validity of 
each other's claims though the former must ever be 
in the van. There is no rivalry or war of interests 
between these two heaven-born daughters of light, 
but imitations of either are more confusing to prac- 
tical business sense than popular theology. 

We know little or nothing in this world but by 

the principle of comparison, the law of contrast. 

The i-norance of The world in reality has no true 

enc e e n £o everyday standard yet reduced to a work- 
questions. aMe bagis of settling the ques _ 

tions of how long is an inch or a foot, how heavy is 
an ounce or a pound, or what is space, matter, 
light, heat, etc. These questions are as puzzling 
to the natural scientist, as the weightier questions 
of life, death, identity and eternity are to the 
student of spiritual entities. When science can 
settle its little problems satisfactorily it will be time 
enough for the scientists to be insistent that we 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



61 



satisfactorily answer the more ponderous ones in 
every detail. 

The greatest problem of time, the unanswered 
question of the age is the mighty query that Jesus 



frogs, bugs and tadpoles for a time, let us desist 
from searching for the origin of our species in 
primeval swamps and boldly, but prayerfully ap- 
proach this important question of man's identity, 
past, present and future. We can be assured that 
the answer to the same will settle all the ephemeral 
questions of lower life, both animal and vegetable. 
This question cannot be settled until it is settled 
right; and that sound settlement implies man's 
perfect adjustment to his true sphere, the sphere 
for which he was created. 

The divine command to the members of Ghrist's 
church, "Prove your own selves," is buttressed by 



ledge of God, the greatest element of all learning, 
self-knowledge is demanded of Christians. 

The exploded fallacy of evolution is discarded by 
sound-thinking men, generally, because the historic 
fact that several thousand years' acquaintance with 
man reveals no new developments above him and 



The greatest 
question of the 
age. 



propounded to his disciples: 
"Who is this son of man?" 
Let us leave the dissecting of 



"Know your own 
selves," a com- 
mand of God. 



the Savior's statement, "If ye 
love me, keep my command- 
ments." Next to the know- 



62 THe GOSPEL OF 

not one authentic case beneath him where a 
creature was or is known to be in process of being 
evo.lved. 

Modern science comes in with a testimony no 
less crushing than that of history and declares that 

Science and his- no P lant Can ever Cr0SS the Un " 

c2hing e evoiu. bridged chasm to the animal 
sphere, except as it is touched 
by a power beyond and above itself, that is an ani- 
mal power. This is true in crossing the chasm 
from the inanimate to the vegetable sphere and 
holds equally good in crossing from the mere ani- 
mal realm to the rational and responsible sphere of 
moral distinctions. 

That man is not primarily a fruit of his own edu- 
cation is a manifest fact, for how could he educate 
how coma man or evolve himself before he had 
bef<£e £?iKa a a being? What was there to 

being to evolve? or ^ ^ therQ ^ 

evolve it? The blind law of progress or evolution, 
to which so much has been attributed, would neces- 
sarily be as miraculous a power as the God it was 
called forth to supplant. We had better admit of 
one miraculous God than to be forced by His rejec- 
tion to admit of a million other miracles equally 
mysterious and more unpalatable. 

Now that it is settled that man is and ever shall 
be distinct from all the lower forms of life and that 
he did not come from their plane, let us look in the 



CAUSE AND EFFEGT. 65 

other direction and ascertain if he did not come 
from a higher sphere. That he is a fallen, rather 
than an exalted being, there is every proof. 

That man's universal yearnings for things eternal, 
glorious and divine are not mere animal discontent 
Man' S universal and aspiration, but lingering, 
L^eTtifeVoof instinctive memories of better, 
of its existence. bygone conditions, there is 

abundant proof. These universal yearnings are a 
tell-tale quality, they are a prophecy of hope, a 
promise of the possibility of future bliss. No ani- 
mal has those holy, undennable yearnings but man. 
God's very nature forbids the possibility of his giv- 
ing those yearnings, or even permitting them to re- 
main with us, unless there were a probability or 
intention on His part of satisfying them. These 
universal longings for an eternal and glorious age 
of peace, plenty and boundless contentment are 
proofs that the satisfaction for the same is within 
the reach of all. Nature constantly relieves her 
creatures of all unnecessary faculties; and the fact 
that she has not destroyed those fine feelings and 
holy yearnings is a proof to us of their divinity and 
naturalness. 

That man came here from the opposite direction 
than the fields of evolution, there is much proof 
outside of his spiritual craving and ethereal hunger. 
That he is in a depraved and unnatural state, is 
proven from his appetites and passions. The lower 



64 THE GOSPEL OF 

orders of animals never habitually break the laws 
that they were intended to keep, but foolish, de- 
praved man lives in the constant breach of that 
law, the keeping of which is for his highest good, in 
body, mind and spirit. His 

"Why every pas- 
sion of the imm an ignorance and his depravity are 

race is perverted. ■* 

so closely related that they can 
hardly be treated separately. His appetites for 
food, drink, clothing, possessions, companionship, 
excitement, etc., are all indulged to the jeopardy of 
both his health and happiness. This is not true of 
any of the lower animals in the natural state.. In 
this particular, man is unnatural, worse than the 
beasts. 

The instincts of the lower animals never lead 
them to egotism and conceited self-confidence, 
resulting in failure and con- 

A comparison be- , _ 

tween instinct fusion. Instinct seldom, if ever 

and education 

favors the lower betrays them into blunders like 

animals. 

man's boasted reason does him. 
Its extent is originally much more sweeping in 
reference to the knowledge essential to life and 
health than man's uninstructed reason. We send 
our sons to school for ten or twelve years and then 
four years more are spent in a medical college to 
study therepeutics, with the result that their 
ignorance concerning the principles of physiology 
and hygiene and the destructive or curative quali- 
ties of drugs hurts more than it helps, if they do 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



65 



not kill more than they cure. This we grant is 
largely for want of a proper understanding of the 
true law of therepeutics that God has put in the 
power of man to acquire. The lower animals sel- 
dom, if ever blunder in the selection of proper food. 
Their hygienic education seems to be perfect. 
Many of the lower animals are seen to diet them- 
selves for disease, dress their own wounds, staunch 
a flow of blood, etc. They act the parts of a true 
physician, surgeon and nurse. 

As hydropathists, many of the four-footed beasts 
and some species of the fowl family could teach 
some doctors the A. B. G. of the 

Some animals . . 

could teach some science. In the generation of 

M. D's. the ° 

gience of medi- their species, they are faultless, 
and good would it be if as much 
could be said of humanity, As migratory creatures 
what scientist can cope with the feathered family 
in the wisdom displayed in the selection of a home? 
The chicken scarcely out of its shell knows as 
much as his parents; and a fawn a few hours old 
has graduated in the arts of secrecy and self- 
defense. I have seen the young quail dart into the 
brush or leaves and hide effectually, with the shell 
still clinging to his back. In comparison to this 
what ignorant, helpless creatures we are. The 
child one or two years old will fill his mouth with 
sand or sawdust as quickly as with bread; and his 
helplessness is as great as his ignorance, and con- 
tinues almost as long, 
C-E5 



66 THE GOSPEL OF 

After ten or twelve years in school we do not 
know as much about the education essential to our 
physical, health and happiness as our dumb friends 
do through instinct, though they never attended 
school in their lives. Would the 

Man originally 

was possessed of great Creator have originally 

perfect wisdom. 0 J 

made the human lord of creation 
thus helpless and handicapped? It is almost a 
slander on the Almighty to suppose it. In com- 
parison to the lower animals, we are universally 
seen to be fearfully deficient in judgment. Scrip- 
ture steps in and declares it was not always so. 
Adam could and did give zoological and physiologi- 
cal names to every creature, from the mightiest 
mastodon down past the wife by his side to the 
minutest molecule and no scientist can do so today 
without reference to text books, The plain infer- 
ence is that originally, man's brain was perfect in 
its comprehension and instantaneous and faultless 
in its judgment. The instinct of the lower animals 
testifies that the Scripture is true, that man is 
fallen and indirectly proves that intuition and life 
came from God. 
From a physical standpoint we compare almost 
as unfavorably as from the 

The physical 

powers of the mental. Aside from the lgnor- 

Iower animals 

greater than ance and helplessness of in- 

ours. 

fancy, our mature ignorance 
and weakness is great, when compared with the lower 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



orders of life. The call of a katy-did and the legs 
of a flea are in comparison to the creature's size 
several thousand times greater than the corres- 
ponding human powers. The scent of a hound is 
as much greater than the same faculty in the 
human as the proportion above mentioned; and the 
bee's untaught knowledge of navigation is in com- 
parison to his bulk as far above our own knowledge 
as our body is greater than his. 

The strength of an ox, the self-confidence of a 
lion, the speed of a deer, the wing of a bird, the eye 
of a hawk, — these things put the best of us to 



what it should be, in cut, color and weight In the 
spring the coat becomes lighter, and in the fall this 
wonderful self-adjusting robe grows heavier; and 
in sickness or health it shrinks or swells to suit the 
altered circumstances. 

Put a powerful glass on a fish scale, a bird's 
feather, a butterfly's wing, a common worm or a 



God's creatures are clothed in worthy robes, except 
man, and he is born perfectly nude; and "unless he 
clothe himself he will remain so till buried. 
Man is not only naked, but he is possessed of an 



A wonderful self- 
adjusting robe. 



shame. The beast, bird, fish 
and insect, each is robed in a 
beautiful dress and it is always 



A fish scale or a 
bird's featber as 
teacbers of hu- 
mility. 



caterpillar's coat, and see if 
"Solomon, in all his glory, was 
arrayed like one of these." All 



68 



THE GOSPEL OF 



instinctive shame for his nudity, as if he felt he 
was accountable for his depraved condition. Why 
this bodily belittling of the race, so entirely unlike 



wickedness declare him to be a degenerate rather 
than a regenerate creature. We will refer to his 
robe in another place and describe the means and 
results of his fall. 

Deduct from the life of man the years of help- 
lessness in youth and age, the years he must spend 
in learning what the lower ani- 

The duration ot 

human life in m als instinctively know, the 

comparison to 



provide a home, feed his family, etc., from all of 
which the lower animals are exempt, and compare 
the few hours of his life that he has left free from 
care, to that of the lower animals and his life is 
ephemeral in its duration. 

On the principle that an idle brain is the devil's 
work shop, and that man must be kept busy, to be 
kept from destroying himself, is not this a clear 
testimony that man is fallen? The deeper you 
probe into him the worse you find him. In his 
three-fold make-up of body, mind and spirit, the 
human trinity is a manifest ruin of a once noble 
and glorious being. He is physically crippled and 



Why men are 
naked, and 
ashamed of the 
fact. 



the rest of God's handiwork? 
The answer is, man is fallen. 
His physical weakness and 



the lower ani- 
mals. 



years he must spend in earning 
money to clothe his nakedness, 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



69 



enslaved, mentally defiled and confused, and spirit- 
ually a corpse. 

God says of man's physical, "The flesh is weak." 
Of his mental powers, He declares, "The thoughts 
a physical slave, and imaginations of his heart 
anTa Ipirfffi are only evil . . . continually." 



"ignorance" and "foolishness." Spiritually, He 
declares him to be "dead in trespasses and in sins;" 
and adds that he "must be born again" in order to 
see the kingdom of God. 

Gompare this divine charge with the description 
of ahorse,asgivenby the patriarch, Job. A three-fold 
redemption for this being in his three-fold ruin of 
body, mind and spirit, had to be purchased by 
Christ. Man finds perfect spiritual and partial 
mental and bodily deliverance now, while the per- 
fect bodily and mental redemption is reserved to 
the end of the age. 

This creature, who is largely taught by bitter 
experiences (science is but the record of human 
Man is fallen or experience) is a manifest re- 



other standpoint but that of his present ruin and 
his future, perfect and eternal redemption in body, 
mind and spirit. 

His manifestly crippled condition in body, mind 
and spirit, leaves him ignorant of his identity, but 



corpse. 



He again charges him v/ith 



the Almighty 
owes him an 
opology. 



flection on the wisdom, love and 
power of the Greator, from any 



70 THe GOSPEL OF 

he. is nevertheless a son of God. He is a DE-gener- 
ate, for which the very attributes of the God of 
love necessarily pledge RE-generation. On a larger 
scale than the parable of that name, he is a prodigal 
son who must come to himself and then to his 
Father. 



GHAPTER V. 



The Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments 
is very plain in its statement of our divine sonship, 
even though the church has always labeled the claim 
blasphemy and punished it with death. This fool- 
ish, heathen prejudice of the dark ages is no less 
active today than it was then, nor is it much less 
vindictive now than it was when it crucified the 
Savior or burned the martyrs of the middle ages. 



in their prolonged continuance. In the genealogies 
of Christ, Adam is called the son of God. If he was 
the son of God, necessarily v/e are sons of God. We 
begin the Lord's prayer with the words, "Our Father 
which art in heaven." If He is our father, then we 
should claim our fullest sonship and sue heaven for 
our entire inheritance. 

From a mere animal standpoint, all God's crea- 
tures of every order are his "sons," but from a 
spiritual standpoint of mutual,conscious communion 
the words of inspiration are true, "If any man have 
not the spirit of Christ he is none of His." Here is 



Inspiration calls 
man the son of 
God. 



The martyr fires of today are 
social or sectarian rather than 
actual, but they are more cruel 



72 THE GOSPEL OF 

where the Christian scientists and kindred, latter 
day heresies originate. These deceived people 
Divine sonship who confound their longings for 
£ u w«£i a p 9ani- al God with God himself and call 
their mere appetite and capacity 
for divine things, the Deity, do not distinguish their 
mere animal sonship in God from true heaven-born 
divinity. That conscious, responsible sonship to 
God that can be made the basis of communion with 
Him is dependent upon the reception of the divine 
life quality into the soul, or else the never-dying 
spirit of this reasoning and responsible animal 
lives on with the eternal inability to . see God or 
enjoy his companionship. Jesus said to all uncon- 
verted men, "Except a man be born again he cannot 
see the kingdom of heaven." This statement is 
scientifically and essentially true. In the very 
nature of things this higher quality of life must 
come from God, and considering man's inability to 
buy it, it must necessarily be a 'gift of faith!" 

The Jews failed to comprehend the fact of 
Christ's divinity, while we have equally failed to 
comprehend the fact of his humanity. They laid 

Jews and Gen- an undue Stress Upon his 

^SmSS&ff 1 being the son of David while we 
the mystery. lay an equally undue stress 

on his being the Son of God. We have flown from 
their blunders to the opposite extreme. Both 
parties are partially right and yet both are posi- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



tively wrong, because they fail to unite these true 
elements of revelation in one grand unity of divinity 
and humanity, as a glorious redemptive scheme. 
In speaking to his Jewish friends, who believed in 
his Davidic relationship, Jesus made much of his 
divinity, which was also attested to by God the 
Father several times in a supernatural voice from 
heaven, while devils also fully confirmed the fact. 
It was for this claim the ecclesiastics crucified him 
on a false charge of blasphemy. On the other hand 
Jesus, who knew that his gospel would be largely a 
Gentile religion, constantly referred to himself as 
"the Son of Man." The unity of this dual truth 
of two natures in both Christ and his followers is 
the balm for all the woes of earth, as the Emmanu- 
elism of Christianity. The refusal to recognize 
this Emmanuelistic, (God-with-us) element, has 
been both the failure and the disgrace of the age; 
it reveals the high water mark of practical unbelief 
in the professed orthodoxy of the era. 

This Emmanuelistic doctrine must be 4 'interpret- 
ed," in our inner experiences, to prove it true that 



think ye of Ghrist, (the anointed one) whose son is 
he?" or the other, "Who is this Son of Man?" Let 
us permit the latter to answer the former and dare 
to assert the facts. He is the Son of God and the 



The Emm arm el- 
Ism of Christian- 
ity as the hope 
of the ages. 



we have "God with us." Let 
us answer the Savior's question, 
momentous as it is, "What 



THE GOSPEL OF 



son of man combined, with all the powers and pre- 
rogatives of both relationships and let us add, in 
the words of inspiration, "As He is so are we in this 
world." Jesus has commissioned us to assume 
those high and responsible relationships, "As the 
Father hath sent me, even so (exactly) send I you 
into the world." Incarnation, or God clothed in 
the flesh, is the mystery of the ages. No wonder 
that under Satanic inspiration it was labeled as a 
blasphemous claim and punishable with death- 
This truth will yet revolutionize the earth, when 
recognized and practically applied through an 
intelligent, aggressive and real faith. 

A true Christian is an exact duplication of the 
Christ life, in seed form, which germ is soon to 



apostle said, "the manifestation of the sons of 
God," for which, "the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together until now." "The 
mystery of godliness" is revealed in tfiis Ghristian 
truth, of God in Ghrist Jesus becoming like men, 
that men in Ghrist Jesus might become like G-od, and 
thus regain their lost heritage and relationship as the 
sons of God in deed and in truth. To the unspirit- 
ual and superficial student of Christianity, deceived 
by the animalizing tendency of the times, this will 
possibly appear as bordering upon blasphemy; but 



A Christian is a 
true duplication 
of Christ on 
earth. 



bloom and fructify in a glorious, 
millennial age of brotherhood 
and peace. That will be, as the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



75 



this is the vital and central truth of Ghristianity, 
made noneffective and sterile only by human un- 
belief. The core of Christianity, the plan of the 
Almighty, the aim of the ages is certainly the com- 
plete restoration of the fallen race, the develop- 
ment and revelation of a divine humanity, univers- 
ally and fully reflecting the image of God their 
Father in an eternal age of peace. Anything short 
of this in the intentions and plans of the Almighty 
would be an outrage of his attributes of purity and 
immutability. It would place Him on an equality 
with the heathen deities who are satisfied with less 
than perfect purity on the part of their wor- 
shippers. 

Accordingly it is written, ''And He gave some 
apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, 
and some pastors and ! teachers, 

A divine man- . , im , /, 

hoodasth© end for the perfecting of the saints, 

for which minis- ' r J ° J 

ters are called to for the work of the ministry, for 

preach . J 

theedifyingof the body of Ghrist; 
till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the 
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. ' ' Per- 
fect manhood or Ghristlikeness in man is the aim of 
the Almighty through redemption. Jesus was not only 
our Redeemer butourperfect pattern also and we are 
told to "walk even as He walked." He who said, "If 
ye love me keep my commandments," himself in- 
spired the positive command, "Let this mind be in 
you which was also in Ghrist Jesus, who being in 



76 THE GOSPEL OF 

the form of God (man was made originally in the 
image of God) thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God." It is a false humility and based on a 
misconception of the nature and aim of the gospel, 
for any one to oppose this fact. This truth forms 
the reason for the inspired commands, "Be ye per- 
fect, for I the Lord your God am perfect;" and 
again "Be ye holy for I am holy." This is what 
John Wesley and the early Methodists called 
Christian perfection or sanctification. It consists 
in an expurgation of all fleshly depravity from the 
hearts of believers and an influx of the pure, 
patient, considerate, self-sacrificing love and spirit 
of God to that extent that the entire after life is 
influenced and controlled by this divine element. 

How audacious for the apostle to say, "Now are 
we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be, but we know that 
dfviSity i^aii re- when he shall appear, we shall 
Su e manit|? dpure be like him, for we shall see 
him as he is" and "That ye may 
be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without 
rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse na- 
tion, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, 
holding forth the Word of life." Jesus said, "Whoso- 
ever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother 
and my sister and mother." The natural,unbelieving 
heart makes no objection to this claim of divine 
sonship so long as the claim is left to lie dormant in 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. Z7 

a mere theory. But as soon as believing, intelli- 
gent activity begins to apply the powers and pre- 
rogatives of that claim to everyday life, there is 
likely to go up a Satan-inspired howl of "blas- 
phemy," "fanaticism," "delusion," as loud and 
virulent as swept over the devoted head of the 
Originator of the claim. Nevertheless, "now are 
we the sons of God" and "the whole creation groan- 
eth and travaileth in pain together until now," "wait- 
ing for the manifestion of the sons of God." O, 
that Christ's professed followers would put away 
their heterodox orthodoxy, their baptized unbelief 
and begin to "manifest" the real fruit of their 
theoretical claims to divine sonship. Amen. 
Nothing but this "manifestation of the sons of God" 
will ever stop the "groaning" and "travailing" of 
"creation." — Rom. 8. 

When we put away the element of practical in- 
fidelity from our lives by ceasing to limit the un- 
limited God and begin to exer- 

Tlie cause of the 

cessation of Pen- cise a faith as firm as the ever- 

tecostal displays. 

lasting hills, and limitless as the 
promises of God on which it is based, we will find 
that the power of the gospel throws all other 
dynamics into the shade as it did at Pentecost. It 
never was the will of the unchangeable God for 
Pentecost to cease. The practical unbelief of the 
church is entirely responsible for the absence of 
Pentecostal manifestations, and he attacks the 



I 8 the :-:s?n c? 

immutability of God in his dispensational dealings, 
who dares deny it. No man can quote a text of 
Scripture against this assertion. They may argue 
from the star. dp tin: c: their prejudices cr their 
fears, but when pinned down to the Word of God 
they prove as sophistical and elusive as a Hindu 
priest. The infusion of irrelevant or antagonistic 
elements into Ghhstiariry has made the mode re- 
type largely a moral mongrel, the fruit of a mis- 
cegenation and not the true genus. It is a hybrid 
that has been de-generated rather than re-gener- 
ated by the crossing and the Greator's "sign" or 
the Maker's trade mark of supernatural power is 



If a manuractuhng firm has a regular sign, stamp 
or trade mark with which all its goods are branded, 
xke d^in^ rrad- '-" a righ: to repudiate re- 
^veC 1 ?^!"!! sponsioility for fraud cr failure 

counterfeit.- ^ ^ goods ^ bnmde(L ^ 

Lord declares, * "These signs shall follow them that 
believe, in my name shall they cast out devils, they 
shall speak with other tongues .... they shall 
iay harms or. the siok ami they shall recover."' 
The absence of these results from our present day 
Christianity stamps much of it as a counterfeit, 
ce cause ceroid :: trie curme i..ar.u:acturer s s.gn 
or trade mark. On the day of Pentecost and for 
some time artemmrd in the early church these 
"signs" r*ere commoriy produced. "The genera. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



79 



absence of these signs today is a call to penitence 
and prayer and faith on the part of the church, as 
the unchangeable Jesus said he would thus be 
with us "even to the end of the world." The goods 
should be like the sample, the age should continue 
to produce real pentecostal, miraculous displays or 
its religious professions be rejected as counterfeits. 

There was a subtle, divine significance in Christ's 
constant reference to himself as "the Son of Man." 



devil who had opposite ends to serve was con- 
stantly testifying to Ghrist's divinity, as much as to 
say to the sons of men, "You cannot expect to do 
those things, because you are not the sons of God. 
Jesus does them because he is a higher order of 
being." Jesus, seeing the end for which the devil 
testified, "rebuked Satan," it is written and "would 
not suffer him to speak." Satan knew if it became 
generally known that we were sons of God in any 
sense like Jesus was, that we would begin to assert 
our divine rights and powers and his kingdom 
would fall- Satan's act was a practical prostitut- 
ing of the divinity of Jesus. He would make his 
heavenly sonship unduly prominent that our 

humanity might be discouraged thereby. Jesus 
constantly taught that we were "joint heirs with 
him." He said again, "The works that I do shall 



Why Satan testi- 
fied to Christ's 
divinity and was 
rebuked. 



He would encourage, dignify 
and inspire hope in the breast 
of the race by this act. The 



80 THE GOSPEL OF 

ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye 

do." 

If Jesus illustrated in his life the condition of 
man before the fall and he is a perfect Redeemer, 
we are com- tne ver y meaning of that word 

SzS^ur^ivine 8 " demands that this same rela- 
sonsnip. tionship to God be now within 

our reach, limited only by our unbelief and received 
only in measure according to our faith. It is mere 
unbelief that keeps the general church from fully 
following this divine Redeemer and Pattern of 
faith. He was the great example to all believers. 
Jesus practically declared at the grave of Lazarus 
that he wrought all his miracles by faith in answer 
to prayer; and in scripture, "the faith of Christ'' is 
made prominent. "I knew that thou hearest me 
always." John 11:42. 

The great temptation of the devil was to get 
Jesus to ruin his mission by prostituting his divine 
The reason of powers of which his followers 
tempted wo 5 were not fully possessed, to 

some big thing. mere j^^^ en ^ Sf m a way 

his followers could not do because of their non- 
possession of these purely divine powers. If Satan 
had succeeded in this he would not only have 
immediately defeated Jesus, but also swept the 
supernatural hope of the gospel from men. Jesus 
came to this world, not only to redeem us from sin, 
but also to set us an example and reveal to us the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



pdwers and prerogatives of truly redeemed beings. 
In all his miraculous ministrations in the hills and 
vales of Judea, the divine and sinless Jesus exer- 
cised only the powers and prerogatives of an un- 
fallen or perfect man. He did just what Adam and 
his descendents would have been disposed and 
able to do, had sin never been known. Sonship in 
all grades and planes of life entails upon the off- 
spring all the faculties, powers and prerogatives of 
the father and it would be an outrage of language 
to deny this fact. 

In the Bible a great many times we are called the 
sons of God, and though fallen, we were originally 



or in spiritual and physical things was given unto 
him. This is just what God bestowed upon Adam 
in the garden when he made him lord of all, but he 
lost his powers and rights afterward through sin. 
Jesus proceeded to back up his broad and audacious 
claim by miraculous displays in every realm and 
element of life and death. His mighty transforma- 
tory operations were performed on the spirits, 
minds and bodies of men. He proved his limitless 
knowledge and power over the winds, waves, fishes, 
vegetables and all created substances in his efforts 
to bless and benefit the sons of men. A true and 
intelligent exercise of the philosophic principle will 



Jesus as an ex- 
ample and pat- 
tern, as well as a 
Redeemer. 



made in his likeness. Jesus as 
the Son of God claimed that 
"all power in heaven and earth," 



CE6 



82 



THE GOSPEL OF 



reveal the fact that this was the necessary fruit 
and the logical consequence of his claim to divine 
sonship, if that claim were to be established. 

If my reader were himself the very embodiment 
of benevolence, that fact would force him to per- 

If the reader Had fectl y W1 ' U or cfes/re the people's 



the attribute of omniscience, that very fact would 
force him to perfectly plan the people's highest 
good. If he were further empowered with the 
attribute of omnipotence he would be placed under 
the additional necessity of performing all things 
essential to the people's highest good. If the 
attribute of omnipresence were also bestowed upon 
him, that fact would oblige him to make the above 
named blessings universal and will, plan and per- 
* form all the people's highest good. If the attribute 
of eternity were also his, the result would be that 
he would need to will, plan and perform all perfect 
benedictions for all his creatures in all places to all 
eternity. There is one additional element that de- 
mands consideration before the above named 
powers could produce a perfect and perennial para- 
dise. That element is submission or harmony be- 
tween the will of this being and the wills of 
all other beings who possess any real claim to the 
elements in or upon which this being must work. 
If there is any opposition to the activities of this 



divine powers 
what would be 
the result. 



highest good. If, in addition to 
his benevolence, he possessed 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 8S 

being on the part of claimants endowed with intelli- 
gence and moral choice, that question must "be 
legally, or rather, righteously settled ere this being 
could universally act. In the meantime he would 
of necessity act locally where 

The reason why- 
Christ acts only permitted by accredited claim- 

locally. ^ J 

ants and then only up to the 
limit of their permission and desire. Here is the 
situation exactly. In Ghrist's redemption all has 
been willed, planned and done perfectly for the 
highest good of all to all eternity that can be done 
under the circumstances and it would universally 
bloom out this minute in Edenic and perpetual con- 
ditions, were it not for the rebel wills of men. 
Rebel man objects to the will of God in Christ 
Jesus; he claims the right to do as he pleases and 
have his own way even to his own ruin and the 
ruin of all about him. The fact that man is not a 
mere automaton, but possessed of intelligence and 
the powers of moral choice demands for him, even 
on the part of God his Father, a recognition and a 
fair trial. 

Pending the settlement of man's wicked and will- 
ful rebellion, and Ghrist's right to universal sover- 
eignty, at the supreme court of 

The legal settle- , 

ment of Christ's God s eternal judgment, Jesus 

right to reign. 0 & ' 

of necessity uses his benign 
powers to bless the sons of men, only in a local 
way, where individuals believe for, desire and seek 



84 THE GOSPEL OF 

it. He produces diminutive personal paradises, 
where man through faith and obedience, intelli- 
gently harmonizes with all his will, and he limits 
the grace in intensity and extent only by the 
measure of their own loving, obedient faith. The 
blessings, offers and promises of redemption are 
limitless in themselves, but the measure of their 
personal acceptance, of necessity is with the 
recipient. Consequently it is written, "According 
to your faith be it unto you," and "Now are we the 
sons of God;" and as that divine sonship implies 
supernatural power, Jesus added, "The works that 
I do shall ye do also," and again, "These signs shall 
follow them that believe; in my name shall they 
cast out devils, they shall lay hands on the sick and 
they shall recover." This is redemption's story 
and the moral history of the world in a nutshell. 

In the light of the fact that man's estranged 
state of rebellion against God is responsible for the 
continuance of all the misery of 

The human will 

in its rebellion is earth and the tardiness of the 

responsible for 

tbe retarding of coming of the millennial king- 

tne millennium. 

dom; and in the light of the fact 
that the case can be settled only at the great eternal 
Judgment Day, who will not pray with the apostle, 
"Even so, come Lord Jesus." 

Inspiration recognizes this perfect unity between 
Christ and his true disciples and the texts of 
Scripture that are even most particularly applicable 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 85 

to Jesus as the Savior, are frequently applied by 
the Holy Spirit to the hearts of Christians. In a 
limited sense all that was true of Jesus is true also 
of his followers. Here, for instance, Jesus said, 
"Father glorify thy Son that thy Son also may 
glorify thee." As to the limited glorification of 
conscious pardon, purity and daily communion with 
God the Christian has his personal prayer worded 
for him here by the Savior. Again, "Ask of me and 
I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance 
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy 
possession." Every servant of God and every 
foreign missionary in particular has a right to plead 
this special messianic promise for himself. Here is 
another special messianic promise that applies in 
some sense to all Christians: "Because thou hast 
loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore 
God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil 
of gladness above thy fellows." This is true, just 
to the extent that men actually love righteousness 
and hate iniquity will they be divinely anointed 
with the oil of gladness above their fellows. 

Again Jesus said "Ye believe in God believe also 
in me." A congregation can receive little or no 
Even messianic benefit f rom the ministrations of 
Me to a tSo^e P wiS a pastor or evangelist in whose 
iwe christlike. intelligence, righteousness or 
piety they have no confidence. Therefore he 
should "do the work of an evangelist" and let his 



86 THe GOSPEL OF 

light so shine before men that they may see his 
good works and glorify his Father in heaven; then 
he has a divine license to demand that they believe 
also in him, as the ambassador of God. Jesus said, 
"This is the work of God that ye believe on him 
whom he hath sent. ,, This not only refers to 
Jesus, but to all his true messengers and servants 
as well. Following up the truth of this verse Jesus 
said, "He that receiveth you receiveth me and he 
thatreceivethme receiveth him that sent me." This 
truth implies its opposite, therefore he that rejects 
Christ's true servants rejects him and the Father 
personally as well. He said to his prejudiced 
Jewish friends, who in their blind ignorance of this 
truth, v/ere cursing themselves by ignoring it, "Oh 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have 
gathered you ..... but ye would not, therefore 
your house is left unto you desolate. Verily I say 
unto you ye shall not see me hence till ye shall say, 
blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." 
When the true gospel messengers, who "come in 
the name of the Lord," are rejected, that religious 
"house" becomes "desolate" at once and Jesus, in 
his miracle-working and blessing power will not be 
seen there again until that people get ready to 
welcome his true messengers and say, "Blessed is 
he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Individ- 
ual churches, synods, conferences and whole 
denominations have often been made perpetually 




CAUSE AND EFFECT 



87 



"desolate" by the leaders rejecting some humble 
gospel messenger, who came "in the name of the 
Lord," as the elders of Israel rejected Ghrist. This 
is universally true of individuals, churches and 
nations. 

Faith in the fact of a perfect redemption makes 
men feel the dignity of their divine relationship and 
The enobiing in- tends to inspire thoughts, affec- 

ja — — „<?4v.^+v. : . . 



sons of God. The Ghristian church shall yet arise 
in its dignity, shake off its nightmare of unbelief 
and enter into its promised land like Israel into 
Ganaan from their wilderness wanderings. It will 
be said, "Who is this that cometh up from the wil- 
derness, leaning upon her beloved?" She "looketh 
forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the 
sun and terrible as an army with banners." "Thy 
sons shall come from far and thy daughters shall 
be nursed at thy side." They shall fly "as the 
doves to their windows,'' to his holy, awakened 
church. They shall "bring their silver and their 
gold with them," to lay at the Master's feet, like 
the "wise men" did of old. 

Oh, for a due recognition of the fact of our 
divine sonship. Though it is true, sure and even 
now within our reach, yet the march of the mind is 
slow and the tree of knowledge is still being made 
the tree of death. A reformer must be content to 



11 lie nee of faith in 
the fact of re- 
demption. 



tions, choices and actions wor- 
thy of their high calling as the 



88 THE GOSPEL OF 

live at least a quarter of a century ahead of his 
time and be satisfied with a post mortem popularity. 
Post mortem The a S e is so corrupt that a 

prfce of^Seing 6 man can hardly hope to be right 

and popular at the same time. 
Creation is dignified by the fact that each animate 
object, from the smallest plant to the giant oak, 
from the tiniest insect to the mightiest man can 
declare, "I am a child of God." This fact makes us 
in some sense brother to every natural flower of 
the field, every tree in the forest and every animal 
that breathes. 

There are many creatures much in evidence 
today which, of course were not in the original list 

of creation. They are hybrids, 

There are many 

creatures that mixed creatures, mongrels and 

God never made. 

animals or plants developed or 
retarded by climatic or other influences. There is 
also the whole spawn of noxious, pestilent insects, 
brought forth no doubt, as a result of, and partial 
punishment for sin, by the present unnatural con- 
dition and relationships of the various elements of 
nature, like disease germs in the air or body. 

The ground was cursed for man's sin and was 
said to bring forth thorns and briers, until it made 
him "sweat" to procure a living. Doubtless weeds, 
bugs, cut-worms and vegetable and animal plagues 
of every kind are here included. These results 
of the curse will all depart with the conditions that 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



89 



gave them birth, while our acquaintance and com- 
munion with all truly natural and beautiful objects 
will go on forever. 

Men of giant thought and noble sentiment feel 
the force of this fact. They feel a oneness with 



ion and unity with the uncreated and invisible but 
omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent God. In 
bodily instincts and appetites we are brothers to the 
brutes; our spiritual relationships to God and 
angels alone enoble and exalt us. Man feels his 
superiority to those creatures, yet he feels in some 
degree an elder brother's interest in their life and 
growth and death. His superiority over them 
makes him more than a brother, he is their god and 
their conscious 6ource of hope. He is not their 
present real provider, but indirectly he was origin- 
ally such and will be again. These creatures know 
not the God of creation, they recognize man as 
their god. 

Originally all creatures were subject to man 
and paid homage to him. The great Greator re- 
what is meant ceived worship from them only 



had made a god to all lower 
orders of life. It is written in the law "ye are gods." 
But man rejected his divine Sovereign and discarded 



Magnanimous 
minds feel a one- 
ness with all 
nature. 



all created objects, an acquaint- 
ance with them, as well as a 
longing for conscious commun- 



by the statement 
**1 said ye are 
gods." 



indirectly through man whom he 



90 THE GOSPEL OF 

his allegiance to the God of Greation, and instantly 
all man's environments in nature going down with 
his fall, the lower animals rejected his lordship and 
discarded their allegiance to him. The lion and 
tiger would at that time lie fawning at his feet, 
harmless as kittens; but today all animals naturally 
fear and dread and flee from man, as he in his 
wickedness fears, dreads and tries to flee from 
Deity, and to the smallest insect they seek his hurt 
and desire his blood. This is a verification of the 
truth, "With what measure ye mete it shall be 
measured to you again." The audacity of the 
wasp or mosquito, the fly or the flea is a tell-tale 
quality. 

On the formerly described principle of the curse 
coming back home, it locates man as the cause of 
these creatures' existence or 

Man's fall proven 

by a mosqnito's their being cursed with blood- 

sting. ° 

thirsty instincts, for God's very 
nature essentially forbids that he make them such 
originally. See the domestic animal, how he looks 
up at man's approach. The cows come lowing, the 
geese come cackling, the dog bounds to meet him 
with a welcome bark, the horse neighs at his 
entrance to the stable. What is this in fact? I 
answer, it is the worshipping, needy brute praying 
to his natural lord, from whom he has a right to 
expect answers to his prayer in the supplying of 
his needs. If one speaks gruffly and sternly to 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



91 



them it is touching to see the poor things slink 
away with an appearance of guilt and condemna- 
tion. Speak kindly and gently and they approach 
boldly and familiarly and manifest the fact that 
they enjoy dumb animal religion; they worship in 
conscious acceptance of their lord. Let my reader 
try this on his horse or dog if he desires further 
proof. 

A knowledge of our true relationship to these 
fear-estranged or worshipping creatures and our 



man's regenera- 
tion, as it went actions toward them. When 

down in his fall. 



spirited it is almost invariably the fault of the pre- 
sent or former owner. By a subtle absorption, 
education or influence they seem to partake of the 
spirit of their master, whether kind and affectionate 
or vicious and mean. You can nearly always tell a 
kind, benevolent spirited man or an ugly vicious 
spirited fellow, by the dispositions of their dogs, 
horses or dumb brutes in general. It is even more 
apparent and true in their dumb brutes than in 
their children, though largely true of them also- 
Of course as in children, predisposition to badness 
is stronger in some than in others, so in mere ani- 
mals; but even this disposition is often but the 
fruit of some one's bad usage of the creature's 
ancestors. The result is but the reaping of what 



All nature will 
come up through 



joint relationship to God, should 
greatly change some of our 



our domestic animals are bad 



92 THE GOSPEL OF 

was sown. As all nature went down with nature's 
created lord in the Adamic fall, it will correspond- 
ingly come up N again at his restoration in the 
millennial universal regeneration. Then, as Isaiah 
says, 'The wolf also, shall dwell with the lamb, and 
the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, 
and the young lion and the fatling together; and a 
little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear 
shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together 
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox," and "they 
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for 
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord 
as the waters cover the sea," 

This last quotation implies that it is our ignorance 
of God and ourselves and of our relations to his 
Tho right know- creatures in general that keep 
aioiS wth/of us today from having the mil- 

fceing called life. This is the fact . 

To know God aright is said in the New Testa- 
ment to be "life eternal," as that means exemption 
from depravity, weakness and ignorance. 

The world was originally one grand symphony of 
intelligence, peace and life. All God's creatures 
a universal primarily talked to their own 

S&happi: kind and to all other kinds of 
beings, doubtless, in a perfectly 
intelligible language. This is intimated in the 
description of the serpent's conversation with Eve 
and her entire freedom from surprise. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT* 93 

They talk yet to each other, but it is the mere 
ruins of a once noble faculty. Who has not heard 
the dumb eloquence of a sheep, a cow, or a horse, 
bleating, lowing or neighing for 

Eloquent lan- . . , 

guage of so-caiied their young or their mates? 

dumb animals. 

The birds sing love songs to 
cheer their laboring partners in their toiling search 
for food, the partridge drums to' call its mate, the 
hen clucks out her maternal instruction to her 
chicks. I have lain in ambush to shoot wild geese 
or turkeys and heard the alarm cry of their keen- 
eyed sentinels and knew my game was gone. That 
cry was such a condensed volume of instruction 
that every goose or turkey in that region vanished 
almost instantly as if by magic. 

No creature on earth is what it would have been 
had not man fallen. The fact that inspiration 

declares that the lion shall yet 

The lion shall yet 

eat grass like eat grass like the ox" reveals 

the ox. 

him as possessed of an unnatural 
appetite today. God never originally intended any 
of his creatures to die, and as a carnivorous appe- 
tite demands the death of other creatures to satisfy 
it, God never could have originally given any of his 
creatures carnivorous appetites. That is a fruit of 
the fall. 

In the beginning all creatures were vegetarians, 
and good would it be for us if primitive conditions 
were more general today. Flesh is the most dis- 



94 THG GOSPEL OF 

eased and unwholesome of all foods. Nuts were 
the "pork" of paradise and fruit was the "beef" 
Nuts tue pork of of Eden. God never primarily 
frStftne a 5e^f of intended any of his creatures 
to go to the morgue and pur- 
chase a piece of a corpse and dine off the decom- 
posing carcass of a cow. 

All the lower orders of animals went down with 
man's fall, and they suffered in their voices at least 
The lower ani- what we suffered in our wisdom 
b^lx^orters^f and knowledge. It is a good 
they could speak. thing f or us that they did, or 

every worshiping creature of earth would doubtless 
act like Balaam's ass and begin, "with man's voice 
to rebuke the madness of the prophet." 

Every living creature is in some sense a wor- 
shiper of a superior being and since man is univers- 
ally possessed of this faculty 

The faith faculty J * J 

sai I quaiity niver " anc * dis P° s ition to worship, it 
forms a proof of God's exist- 
ence as a being above man. The human family feels 
its natural weakness and need of God. This instinc- 
tive feeling of the need of a power beyond themselves 
is what makes men gather around and depend on a 
confident, strong-minded, independent man who is 
building on the foundation of apparent truth. 

This is what makes such men the central figures 
in all great achievements, industrial, political, 
military, economic and religious. This man is 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 95 

essentially a system builder through the medium 
of his faith. Respect for, and confidence in God 
are as essential to true worship, consequently, as 
superior goodness or greatness 

Man's universal 

instinct to wor- on the part of a husband are 

ship. 

essential to his wife's respect 
or a continuance of herlove. The soldier's confidence 
in his general is often the basis of his victory; the 
workman's faith in his superior is the foundation of 
his own success; and on this principle our confi- 
dence in God's benevolence, power and wisdom is 
the attracting power of the gospel. 

Foolish men often assert that they do not believe 
in a supernatural God as the author of invisible life; 
as if life were ever anything else but invisible and 
supernatural. Man knows no more about his own 
invisible, supernatural life essence, its so urce 
possibilities and end than he does of God. The 
smallest plant and the tiniest insect defiantly say 
to the proud ignoramus, Form an acquaintance 
with me before you reject the infinite Creator for 
your lack of ability to comprehend him. On this 
principle, the animal, the plant, and all created sub- 
stance can be rejected equally with God for their 
refusal to reveal themselves to ignorance, for man 
is acquainted with none of them in their true 
essence. 

That mysterious entity which we call life, in all 
its phases, might be defined as the creature's 



96 THE GOSPEL 0? 

ability to resist the lower laws of dissolution. 
Digestion and assimilation declare that decomposi- 
tion of matter in some form is essential to the per- 
petuation of life, in every form of its physical ex- 
iafe defined as pression. These so-called laws 
fowl^iaws^t of decomposition are in reality 

the activities of a lower order, 
or generation of the law of life. The conflict for 
the perpetuation of their kind that ever exists 
between the inert elements and the vegetable,' 
exists also between the vegetable and the animal. 
The same battles are being fought out on a higher 
plane, between the unreasoning animal and the 
reasoning man; and higher still between the man's 
divine, morally responsible spiritual life and his 
mere animal powers. 

If in any of these stages the plant, the animal or 
the man fails to effectually resist this so-called 
process of death and decomposition, this active law 
wnat makes the °* Kfe & the lower elements, 
tSe a p?e| uftSZ 16 the creature doing so is doomed 

by that act. It becomes the 
lawful prey of the lower elements. The creature's 
inability or indisposition to force this lower law into 
its service, licenses this law to force the creature 
into its service instead. Thus the elements that 
would have built up the creature's life assure its 
death and dissolution. If the creature does not 
utilize its environments, then the environments will 



CAUSE AND EFFECT 97 

utilize the creature. And as this is necessarily a 
service unto death the servant has his dissolution 
for his pay. 

This law of cause and effect, this principle of 
biology in meting out life and death to activity and 
inactivity, respectively, is 

Nature's dealings 

with energy and nature's incentive to exercise; 

inertia. 

for she recognizes the fact that 
her existence is a mere mode of motion, and she 
detests inertia, either in a mollusk or a man, an 
incipient cell or an immortal spirit. 

The very mystery of life, even in the lowest 
orders, proves the existence of God and that life 
necessarily came from him. Its 

Life's mystery a 

p r£°J that it is a manifest inability to purchase, 

gift from God. J v 

create, beget or develop itself 
before it had a being is proof positive that it can be 
said even of animal or vegetable life, "It is the gift 
of God." Thus also with the reasoning, choosing 
and morally responsible human spirit, its very 
mystery proves it must have been a gift of God. 

That "immortality" or glorified incorruption for 
which the deathless spirit is divinely told to seek, 

while in the flesh, is on the 
anfmai^lSirls 3 principle of analogy proven to 
iM e from e God! be necessarily a "gift of God." 

Every plant and animal of earth 
when placed on the witness stand, in a dumb elo- 
quence affirms by the very mystery of its being and 
CE7 



98 THE GOSPEL OF 

the instincts, appetites and environments that con- 
trol it that life was and is a "gift from God." 
Physiology, philosophy, zoology, geology, astronomy, 
physiognomy, psychology, the partially developed 
science of phrenology and the history and experi- 
ence of all reasoning beings, on being called in to 
testify to the truth or falsity of the gospel, make 
their bow and swear by the innate elements of their 
own being and the universal and essential nature 
of all created substance, that they find "the wages 
of sin is death." 



GHAPTER VI. 



This law of the eternal fitness of things, this 
self-acting principle of natural and universal ad- 
justment is perpetually operative. It eventually 
shuffles every man into his own true sphere and 
gives him the environment which he deserves. This 
principle abhors the idea of an unworthy man being 
kept in a worthy position, or a worthy man being kept 
in a base position. Its natural tendency is to de- 
throne the non-competents and coronate the com- 
petents in every walk of life. It may be thwarted 



sooner or later, the gravitation to the true level is 
like the rush of a mountain torrent to the plain or 
the mighty ascension of an inflated balloon to its 
true aeriel level. Our business, then, is not to seek 
worthy or exalted positions, but rather to seek fit- 
ness for them. Here, as well as hereafter, the 
character and competence of the actor demands a 
field in which to act. This ever-acting principle of 
self -judgment, which makes the soul shape its own 
destiny and environment, is seen on every hand. 



The system by 
which, compet- 
ency crowns it- 
self. 



in appearance for a time by ar- 
tificial appliances, but when 
they give way, as they do 



LofC. 



100 THE GOSPEL OF 

The spirit of a slovenly woman duplicates her de- 
generacy in her person and her home, while a neat 
a lazy man is his orderly housewife turns the 

SSnftSS most dingy log cabin into a pal- 
is his plate. acQ> spirit Qf a lazy> shift _ 

less man photographs his folly on his surroundings, 
His person, house, barn, horses, tools, everything 
partakes of the degenerate life of their lord and 
master, who is, constantly excusing himself and be- 
moaning his hard luck. 

Who has not seen the house of the prosperous 
man begin to deteriorate and fall to decay as he fell 
The physical en- to drinking or gambling? Who 
SS?Sph e ofthe ho " has not seen the wretched 
home of the reformed and con- 
verted drunkard begin to blossom anew as the fruit 
of his regeneration? A new fence goes up, a new 
roof goes on, the house is repaired, enlarged and 
furnished. This is the invisible spirit of the master 
of the house infusing itself into his environments. 

Men's physical conditions are often expressive 
of their true spiritual state. They seem to be a 
Physical condi- parabolic reflection of the same 
ofmet^uoSiS^ in many cases. Doubtless the 
nai state. Lord p erm | ts ^his as a reminder 

and corrective of wrongs in this life or as rewards 
for merit. Physical disease, defeat, poverty and 
general affliction will oftener than otherwise be 
seen to have a grim and significant resemblance to 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 101 

some mental or spiritual weakness or sin which 
they should correct in order to receive deliverance 
therefrom. To the divinely instructed and spirit- 
ual student, all nature is musical with parabolic in- 
struction and vocal with analogies as the voice of 
Him of whom it was said, "Without a parable spake 
he not unto them." The very nature and location 
of the physical affliction is often significantly ex- 
pressive of the spiritual lesson to be learned. 

This is as true of nations as it is of individuals. 
The nations which are void of the Bible and the 
a national as true Gcd are correspondingly 

Sviduaf Sxperi- void of a true education. Their 
lack of sound education leaves 
them the prey to every ruinous superstition and 
fallacy. Their physical surroundings sink to the 
level of their spiritual life. This is true of religious 
denominations and the entire earth. 

When the proud Babylonian monarch, Nebuchad- 
nezzar, was struck with insanity, or rather demoni- 
acy, for his pride, "a beast's 

The spirit dupli- 
cates its degener- heart" was given him, as it is 

aey in the hody. & ' 

written, and he proved that a 
lower and beastly spirit had taken possession of 
him in that he craved to "eat grass like an ox." 
This same insane, beastly spirit began at once to 
drag the noble body of the king down to its own 
beastly level, so that in less than seven years God 
declared, "His hair grew like eagle's feathers and 



102 THE GOSPEL OF 

his nails like bird's claws." This is a clear case of 
the spirit duplicating its nature in the body. (A 
touch of this demoniacal spirit is what puts paint 
and feathers on the savage American Indians and 
some semi-civilized white people.) 

It was this principle that made the incarnation a 
necessity. The mighty, limitless love of the invis- 
ible God for the human race 

The principle by ■ ... 

which the mcar- must be privileged to express 

nation became a ... . 

scientific necess- itself physically. In the very 
nature of things, God's deep, 
divine desire called for and begot the body of the 
faultless, blemishless Jesus, as a medium through 
which to express itself. This bodily manifestation 
of God in Ghrist Jesus became a scientific neces- 
sity. His very love essence demanded this actuali- 
zation of itself. The Scriptural statement, "The 
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," is the 
natural and essential sequence to the words, "God 
so loved the world." 

All things existed in an ideal sense, before they 
ever existed in a concrete, real sense. Men sweat, 

toil and sacrifice for the em- 
Nature as the 

physical photo- bodying of their ideal desires. 

graph of God. J ° 

Thus a home, a factory, an 
invention, a railroad, a system or a true religious 
revival is but the embodying of some person's ideal. 
Where there is an absence of true idealism there 
can be no worthy realism. The nature and 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



103 



strength of the ideal is seen in the actual result, 
and failure is always the proof and punishment of 
heartlessness. 

In connection with gospel work in general there 
is nothing more simple and yet less thoroughly 
conditions essen- understood than the elements 
Il^tifitoa^viV- which go to make up a true 
revival. An attractive build- 
ing, an eloquent, interesting, scholarly preacher, 
beautiful singing, a high order of music, the friendly 
co-operation of the newspapers, etc., are generally 
looked upon as essentials to a revival. A clear 
understanding of the gospel proves that these 
things are not only non-essentials, but that they 
are often if not always more or less of a positive 
hindrance to it. 

The gospel is not for a class, but for the mass of 
mankind. The church of Jesus is not the genTEEL 

Which is it, the ChUrCh ' but the S enTILE ChUrCh « 
gSTI^ciu^cil lt WaS n0t made f0r the CU1 ~ 

tured company, but for the 
common people. The fact that the original Christ- 
ian church was a democratic theocracy rather than 
an aristocratic plutocracy, demanded that if the 
rich and cultured classes ever received its benefits, 
they must come down to the level of the common 
people to And them. If, as the Bible declares, the 
gospel is especially for the general public, its 
essentials must be in the reach of th3 common 
people, the world over. 



104 THE GOSPEL OF 

And since a true revival is primarily a spiritual 
quickening, the conditions must essentially be 
spiritual. What then are the spiritual conditions 
that form the essentials of a true revival of religion? 

The purchase price of a real revival has always 
been a true, hearty desire for it on the part of the 
„ . church, coupled with a real wil- 

revivai ce ° f a lingness to fully believe and 
obey God in all things. This 
condition of affairs permits God to beget a lofty 
ideal in the hearts of the members. The church's 
inability to produce a true revival in the past one- 
fourth of a century, proves her poverty of desire, 
her want of high and holy idealism, her cold, heart- 
less formality, her lack of fervent, burning love and 
sympathy for the souls of men. This being the 
case, the absence of a revival is the disgrace of the 
church. 

When Moses grew angry with his erring brother 
Aaron, he dropped the tables of stone upon which 
the commandments of God were but lately en- 
graven and fractured them, so that new ones had to 
a lack of love the be Procured. This is significant; 
church's^rren- when preachers get angry they 



break all the commandments in 
spirit. We should remember this and be patiently 
charitable to those whom we consider wrong. We 
cannot dodge the responsibility. God has said, 
"When Zion travailed she brought forth her child- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



105 



ren." The lack of soul agonizing desire leaves the 
church barren and childless. God's very nature 
demands that there be no essential lack outside of 
ourselves. "His divine power hath given unto us 
all things that pertain unto life and godliness through 
the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory 
and virtue.'' In justification of God's all-sufficient 
plans for the blessing of all the obedient, the apostle 
declared to his non-progressive converts, "Ye are 
not straightened in us, but ye are straightened in 
your own bowels." These verses reveal the fact 
that all the elements essential to a true revival are 
within the reach of every local branch of the Christ- 
ian church. The strength of the church's desire must 
ever be the limit of her success. The fervency of 
her love must ever mark the extent of her revival 
victory. 

This fact is a trumpet call to prayer, humiliation 
and confession, on the part of those evangelists, 



their efforts. That formality is the father of failure 
and heartiness the secret of success, no thoughtful 
person can deny. The church must deplore her 
depravity, bewail her worldliness, confess her cold- 
ness and repent of her feelingless formalism and 
lack of love, like a chicken thief should of his crime, 
if she would ever see a mighty display of God's 



A divine call to 
the evangeliza- 
tion of the evan- 
gelists. 



pastors, churches and denomina- 
tions that are void of true, 
broad, lasting, revival victory in 



106 THe GOSPEL OF 

old-time revival power. This will seem a little un- 
palatable, but it is indispensable to both the 
church's well being and her being; for a real New 
Testament revival is essential to the church's very 
existence. 

Popularity is too costly a commodity, when pur- 
chased by the sacrifice of principle. This flower in 

Popularity as a a dead man ' s button-hole must 

man^button- ead be abandoned by all who desire 
to be radically right. It is more 
than a risk of one's reputation to tell the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth on any sub- 
ject; it is generally a positive sacrifice of one's 
possibilities of popularity to do so. Nevertheless, 
we feel he sacrifices his self respect and stands 
self-convicted of perjury who fails to do so. We 
feel like humbly and affectionately presenting some 
facts to our ministerial contemporaries, for their 
prayerful perusal, and ask from professors of 
Christianity generally, a conscientious considera- 
tion of the same. 

In our larger cities the Sunday baseball parks are 
filled with people, and the same evening the most 
popular D. D. in the city often will not have 500 in 
worldly enter- his congregation; yet it costs 
SStSfSf ood'iS twenty-five cents to see the 
rival display. baseba ll game, and the preacher 

can be heard for nothing. The vilest theater can 
boast that the people by the thousands pay their 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 10? 

money, afternoon and evening, for the privilege of 
attending its entertainments in crowds that tax the 
seating capacity of the building; but the church, 
whose seats are free, complains that they are 
empty. A political gathering, a costly lecture, a 
musical entertainment, a dog and pony show, a 
Sunday street parade, etc., have no reason to com- 
plain of small crowds in our cities; but the preach- 
ers often are forced to make the humiliating con- 
fession that the people will not attend church. 

What has caused this state of affairs? Is the 
gospel a failure? Is religion a hoax? Are the 
The church as an P 8 °Pl e degenerating? Or can 
cirtfiSSen it be that the church is off the 
track, or, like an electric street 
car with a broken trolley-pole, she has lost her 
upper connection and receives neither light nor 
locomotive energy from the dynamo in the power 
house of God? We are forced to admit, upon 
investigation, that the latter is largely true, and 
the reason the churches are losing their influence 
over sensible, thinking men generally, is because 
they have drifted from their original principles and 
put social distinction on too thick and their religion 
on too thin. Instead of regenerating the world, 
the popular church has been degenerated by it; and 
instead of converting the giddy throng to her way 
of living, she has been converted by them to their 
way of living. 



108 THE GOSPEL OF 

More divinity in the pulpit will put more human- 
ity in the pew, more sense in the sermon will bring 
Theological seed- more seekers to the church. It 
hea^eSiy'gJaft to is time to reverse the subject of 
produce fimt. general discussion at some 
ministerial meetings of how to reach and save the 
masses; and the masses should present a paper, on 
the subject of how to reach and save some of the 
preachers from the effects of their own foolishness, 
for here is the real cause of the trouble. Many a 
preacher today is a seedling, who has never had 
the divine nature ingrafted into him (II Peter 1 :4) 
by the hand of the heavenly horticulturist. He is 
a different product often from the preacher of even 
fifty or seventy-five years ago. In those good old 
days, before the mistake was made of substituting 
intellectuality for spirituality, preachers were made 
in a different way than they generally are now. 
Such conviction for sin came upon men's hearts 
that they thoroughly repented and sought 1 and 
found the saving mercy of God. They graduated 
often in a fence corner and got their diplomas in a 
corn field. But as they began to testify and ex- 
hort, the church recognized their ability and 
licensed them, and finally ordained them as preach- 
ers. This sort of men were in the ministry for love 
rather than lucre's sake. It was principle, not 
policy; Ghrist, not creed, with them. If the truth 
made them unpopular, they took it as part of their 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 109 

pay, and though brickbats, rotten eggs and slander, 
as in the days of early Methodism and apostolic 
times, formed much of their salary, they would 
preach anyway. How different it is today. 

If a man has three or four sons he will send one 
to learn the law business, another to study medi- 
Manufacturing cine > and planning for the last 
SIStogiclioeme- one his wife says, "I always felt 
tery# that one of my boys ought to be 

a preacher; let us send John to the theological 
cemetery and we'll make a minister of him." John 
is accordingly sent to the "cemetery," and after a 
few years in the Theological Dead-house, rumaging 
through defunct languages and heathen mythologies 
he comes out to fill a fashionable city pulpit and 
preach too often to baptized infidels like himself. 
This man can not produce a real revival, any more 
than a dead mother can give birth to a live child. 
So, to keep up appearances, he must abandon the 
true principles of the gospel and broaden "the 
narrow way" so that rich men can be induced to 
join the church, in order that it might be perpetu- 
ated by their money and influence. One of the 
main proofs that was given to John the Baptist of 
the divinity of Jesus was that He preached the 
gospel to the poor. Luke 7:22. 

It is a remarkable fact that the poor are generally 
ignored by many popular preachers today even 
among Protestants, while they spend their time 



110 



THE GOSPEL OF 



largely in attendance upon the rich. In mission 
work we find hundreds of homes that have never 
been entered by popular preachers. Though origin- 



mission. While degenerating into a fashionable 
religious club-house, her real work is being left, to 
be done or neglected at will, by unsophisticated 
mission workers. She seems not to see that if an 
institution has no "mission" on earth it is time to 
give it a respectable burial. 

When the unconverted rich are brought into the 
church they must be given official positions to keep 
political bodies them in good humor. Then 



selfish and fashionable principles, certain sections 
of the Bible are discredited, God is made almost an 
outlaw, the church forfeits her right to public 
respect and the people generally drift to secular 
enjoyments. Here is another basal cause of the 
trouble. A plaster fully as broad as the sore must 
be applied, if the church ever regains her lost 
prestige. History gives us no account of a corrupt 
political body ever purifying itself, so as to be able 
to bless the world with a benign political reform; 
nor of a fashionable, formal church that ever re- 
gained its former purity and power, so as to bless 



A church that is 
not a mission 
should, he hurled. 



ally a mission movement, the 
popular church of today would 
feel humiliated at being called a 



and churches 
never reform 
themselves. 



when they begin to run the 
church on their worldly-wise, 



CAUSE AND EFFECT 



111 



mamrind with a real gospel revival. Nature's plan 
has generally been to bring about political reform 
through a new party, and spiritual advancement 
through a new church- Thus has it been in the 
birth of every political body and religious movement 
that ever blessed the world. 

What the general Ghristian church is pining for 
and what it needs, but does not want, is real true 
The need of the men ™ her pulpits. Not mere- 



bipeds.' , We are cursed with too many of that 
class now; the old ship Zion is overloaded with her 
useless crew of these gelatinous creatures. What 
is needed is soul, mind and backbone. Men who 
fear nothing but to offend against the right; of 
dauntless courage and absolute independence in 
thought, word and act. Men who have dropped 
the words "discouragement" and "impossible" from 
their vocabularies and whose cosmopolitan spirit 
recognizes every man as their brother and every 
land their home. Men who ask nothing of this 
world but the right of treading on it and dare to 
look to God for all their supplies while shaking 
their hands from holding of bribes. Men who, from 
the lowest stratum to the highest pinnacle of 
society, are acquainted with the grievances, woes 
and temptations of the oppressed masses. Men 
who have graduated in the school of adversity, 



Christian church 
is true men in 
her pulpits. 



ly creatures of this name de- 
scribed by Plato as "featherless 



112 THE GOSPEL OF 

and have received their degree from the horny 
hand of poverty; and who, like the original Baptist, 
are burning and shining lights, and consider them- 
selves merely a voice in the wilderness of this 
m world speaking for God and 

We need another 

John the Baptist the right. Men who have 

or Saul of Tarsus. ° 

enough of the granite nature of 
Peter and the gentle affection of Barnabas to be at 
once "sons of thunder" and "sons of consolation." 
Men who know Ghrist independent of creed and 
purity independent of party. Elijah-like and 
Argus-like souls, whose eagle vision can'pierce the 
fogs of popular deception and whose mighty arm 
can brush aside the silken veil of sophistry. Men 
who refuse to be gagged by greenbacks or shackled 
by gold, and who scorn to be hamstrung by fashion- 
able official boards. Men whose composition is 
mind, morals and metal, rather than much of the 
mud that is current under the misnomer "man." 
Men with muscles of iron and nerves of steel, in 
whose tremendous grasp baptized iniquity whimpers 
like a whipped child, social deformity groans at be- 
ing forced to behold its own photograph, while 
legislative piracy roars like the "bulls of Bashan" 
at being exposed to the wrath of an over-credulous 
people. 

If ever the church, and the world too, needed 
men of this mould, they are needed in this fashion- 
able, sectarian, party-cursed age in which we live. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



113 



The baptized bigotry, fossilized formality, and 
petrified perfidy of this age are well intrenched, 
while truth, purity and Ghristian charity are exiles 



of a coming brighter age and live where the glory 
of the cross of Jesus is all the encouragement they 
need. 

Where are the moral and mental giants, the Her- 
culean heroes who dare attack the conscienceless 
editorial staff of intellectual prostitutes, who often 



tenets and robbery schemes in order to keep the 
good will of the conscienceless Barabbases and 
feelingless Shylocks, whose hired tools they are? 
Where are the lion-like Luthers, who are not 
afraid to burn the bulls of silly sectarian bigots, and 
who dare defy the heartless hierarchy of their own 
church if need be inabolddenunciationof popularsin? 
Where are the daring Daniels, who will stand alone 
against the world and the wrong for God and the 
right? Where are the Sampsons, who dare risk 
their lives in pulling the pillars from under the 
temples of civil and ecclesiastical wickedness? 
Where are the daring spirits who with a "whip of 
small cords" dare drive degenerate priests, polluted 



The baptized 
bigotry of the 
age. 



in the earth. These White 
Knights of Truth must keep 
their eye on the Morning Star 



The church must 
have a new 
leader. 



use their libelous sheets to 
vilify righteous men and sound 
principles, and extol malicious 



CE8 



114 THE GOSPEL OF 

politicians and plutocratic money-changers from 
the temples of piety and politics, wherever they 
are found and who will, as saith the prophet, ''seek 
judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the father- 
less and plead for the widow," till this wilderness 
rejoices and blossoms like the rose? 

God wants thousands of men whose heads, 
hearts, hands, mouths and backbones are all the 
Lord's and who will use them for 

The Lord wants 

consecrated Him to that extent, that if need 

backbones. 

be their bodies can be offered up 
on the altars of public ignorance, a vicarious 
sacrifice to save the church and the world from 
self and the devil. 

The modern church has largely lost her restrain- 
ing, wholesome influence over the popular mind, 
The church's life anc * sne wil l soon £° down and 
Pa\3e h threSten n el lose her very life and identity in 

by revolution. ft Qf ^ 

revolution, political, social and economic, unless 
she brings the fear of God and the love of right- 
eousness to bear upon the masses, through a re- 
vival of true religion. Some entire denominations 
are spiritually superannuated as a consequence of 
their refusal to do this. 

Reader, do not antagonize this truth, but ex- 
amine it and pray over it and you will be forced to 
acknowledge its soundness. The legitimate fruit 
of the church's frigid formality is seen in her non- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



115 



progression even in numbers. A scriptural revival 
alone will save from self-interest and settle the 



the church into sections and parties with warring 
interests. There can be no real diversity of 
interest between two sections of Ghrist's true 
church. "We are members one of another" and 
each needs the other in order to succeed. "If one 
member suffer, all the members suffer with it." 
This is an industrial as well as a religious truth. 
These competitive interests entail a great unneces- 
sary and expensive hardship upon the people in 
keeping up a lot of buildings, schools, teachers, 
and publishing houses, when on the principle of 
true unity even better results could be secured by 
a centralization of interest and effort. Even those 
who profess to be preaching the very same truths 
do not seem desirous of harmony. 

It is high time to abandon our sectarian schemes 
and profitless parleying for party, and through 



recognize the fact that we neither live nor die to 
ourselves, but rise or fall together. We should have 
a revival of a broad, deep, lasting order, or we 



Tne fruit of for- 
mality is non- 
progression. 



petty ecclesiastical tyrranies, 
formalities and jarring discord- 
ancies which are ever rupturing 



True unity and 
affiliation the 
base of success. 



separation from the world and 
sin and self, humbly draw nigh 
to God in faith and prayer for a 
revival of true religion. We 



116 



THE GOSPEL OF 



should entirely retire from the religious business. 
There is need of a truer unity and wiser adjust- 
ment of our denominational differences on the 
principles of love and charity. To accomplish this, 
however, sensitiveness must be sacrificed. The 
true people of God need to be divinely compacted 
into a universal prayer league for the promotion 
of intelligent, scriptural truth, purity and power. 
We need a holy gospel alliance of an inter-and 
ultra-denominational nature, in which ecclesiastical 
wire-pulling and intrigue are forbidden a place and 
where humility, love and truth hold sway. Who 
will labor and pray and sacrifice to bring it about? 

The divine principle of unity, discarded by the 
church is seized upon by the mighty minds of the 
mity the basis trust magnates and proves to 



any rate from the principle of strength in unity. 
Every article manufactured by the trusts is pro- 
duced much cheaper by the principle of centraliza- 
tion and wholesaleism. Surely "The children of 
this world are wiser in their generation than the 
children of light." The principle of unity is divine 
and must succeed. It cannot be shut out by law; 
it must be protected and regulated by law. It is a 
fruit of the eternal order of things, a harvest of 
good, sensible thought. In comparison to the 
earth, the heavens are no holier nor higher above it 



of success in the 
-svorld's giant 
trnsts. 



be a basis of worldly success. 
God is going to receive glory at 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



117 



than is the principle of co-operation above com- 
petition. 

In its last analysis, competition is cowardice and 
division is death. It is a proof of infidelity toward 



Well, the present trend toward centralization will 
soon force the smaller and more radical churches 
and missions to unite on one hand and the larger 
and more liberal ones to unite on the other, or life 
will be the forfeit for the crime. A revival of true 
religion alone will make brotherhood and unity a 
possibility as it is a necessity. 

A real gospel revival is necessary to keep many 
of our larger city churches off the auction block; 



church from falling into lower and more degrading 
experiences. There will be a superabundance of 
theological ecclesiastics "converted" into sewing 
machine agents or pill peddlers for want of "an 
appointment," in the near future if the conditions 
of a true revival are not met; for the thinking ele- 
ments among the wealthy worldlings that lately 
swelled her membership are beginning to feel and 



The cowardice of 
competition 
proves a lack of 
faitli in God or 
man, 



God or man, or both. Theo- 
logians should go to school to 
the world's hard-headed trust 
magnates to learn theology. 



A revival is es- 
sential to keep 
many city 
churches off the 
auction block. 



for many of them are scandal- 
ously under tribute to the 
pawnshop today. Higher 
ideals alone can save the 



118 



THE GOSPEL OF 



act like rats on a doomed ship. It is greatly to be 
hoped that a benevolent God will bring about a 
mighty reaction from the church's popular heart- 
lessness and use it as a powerful revival influence 
by begetting in the hearts of her members a super- 
natural sympathy and a limitless love for the lost. 

Oh, for a hearty digestion and assimilation by the 
church of the conditions of a revival laid down by 



advice and come down off our stilts, and as church 
members from the bishop to the bartender, let us 
go to the "mourners' bench" and seek for the re- 
viving of the work of God in our midst. We owe it 
to God, our children, our neighbors and the rising 
generation and the heathen world especially, as 
well as to our own never-dying spirits. That mighty 
love and ideal desire for a revival of true religion, 
of necessity demand the outpouring of all unworthy 
affection and choice from the heart, as conditions 
to its realization is evident to all who think. This 
spirit alone can transform the church and photo- 
graph its features on her entire organism. The 
church's present condition is not only the physic- 
alizing of the low ideals of her leaders, but the 
world itself, in its primitive, Edenic grandeur and 
its future Millennial glory was and will be but the 
actualizing of the high ideals of God. Nature in 



A prophetic call 
to prayer and the 
needofheeding it. 



inspiration in the second chap- 
ter of the book of Joel. Breth- 
ren, let us heed the prophet's 



CAUSE AND EFFECT 119 

her pristine grandeur and her latter day glory re- 
veals herself as the visible garments of the invisible 
God. 

There is no truth that cuts deeper into the sensi- 
tive soul of man than this fact that failure is a proof of 
present or past heartlessness, a 
of ai iea?tfel s ^essf lack of true idealism. Yet it is 
always a fact that those who 
kick the hardest are those in whose lives this truth 
is most patent. Men delight to shift the responsi- 
bility for their failures on others, their surround- 
ings, Providence, anything to dodge it. A truth 
that robs them of their excuses is never palatable; 
but from the mightiest promoter to the street fid- 
dler, from the fun hunting worldling to the pious 
ecclesiastic, formality is failure in nature and ex- 
tent. Though the pill might be easier swallowed if 
it was a little better sugar-coated, yet it is true 
that the church's spiritual condition is generally an 
exact duplication of the spiritual condition or 
experience of her present or former pastor. 

This principle of essential reproduction is seen 
by the intelligent eye to be acting and re-acting 
with awful results in the realm of the mind and 
spirit as well as in physical affairs. Hypocrisy 
does not pay. It is as bad at least, as open wick- 
edness and it can not be concealed. 

The only sensible thing to do is to renounce the 
degenerate life in its mode of manifesting itself 



120 THe GOSPEL OF 

and seek, through right living and faith in Ghrist, 
the regenerating principle that will take the bent to 
badness out of the inner life spring. The nature of 
The vegetable the inner life, acts the same in 
ciates the" truti?" the moral, mental and physical 

of the gospel. VJ . £ ., , 

life of a man, as it does m 
the vegetable world. We see that mysterious, 
invisible, actice energy, with which we are utterly 
unacquainted, but which we call life, take a thous- 
and shapes in the vegetable world. That form of 
vegetable life which we call an oak, contradis- 
tinguishes its inner nature from the pine or maple, 
by its intrinsic and instinctive ability to cull only 
those properties out of the general elements that 
go to form a physical monument of itself. The 
pine or the pear tree does likewise, and they never 
get mixed up in their appetites or instincts or 
crossed in their physical embodiment. They al- 
ways make a true corporeal register of their 
inner life essence. 

There are in the elements that go to make up 
our earth, all the properties essential to the form- 
ation of fruit, flowers vegeta- 

The materials for 

good and evil are , bles and animals of every sort. 

within our reach. 

The invisible life-spring, the na- 
ture of the creature must in the light of its real de- 
sires instinctively decide what properties are es- 
sential to its best development and leave all others 
forever. To be untrue to this principle is criminal 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 121 

and the punishment is death. This is true in the 
animal as well as in the vegetable world, and it is 
equally true in the realm of mind and spirit. Men 
and movements as well as animals and vegetables 
fail when untrue to this principle. This scientific 
fact stamps baptismal regeneration, ritualistic piety 
and all other forms of religion which do not mani- 
fest themselves in righteous living, as the idiocy 
of the church and the badge of her dishonorable 
ignorance. 

Jesus, the true idealist, said in reference to the 
obtaining of the divine, ideal life, "Agonize to enter'* 
therein. The pseudo-scien- 
speifelf with a tists of today say, "Just rest; 

capital "T»is , 

worsuppedby reckon that all things are as 

some. 

they should be. Thought and 
belief are the only reality," and such like nonsense. 
To label this fallacy with the name "Thought" 
spelled with a capital "T" and then say prayers to 
it is as silly as it is audacious. The only ground on 
which we could clear those mind worshippers of 
the guilt of idolatry, is that their fetish is not "a 
likeness of anything in heaven above, the earth be- 
neath or the waters under the earth." This ignor- 
ing of the fact that thought, faith, choice are but 
mediums through which real life expresses and de- 
velopes itself is a fatal infatuation. Heaven in- 
spired soul agony is compatible with true inner 
peace, rest, quietness; and is perfectly free from 



122 Trie GOSPEL OF 

all animal nervous strain and worry, though this 
seems paradoxical and contradictory to the unspir- 
itualmind. The subtle peace which accompanies 
real soul agony is a proof to its possessor that the 
word is divinely true, that says, "My yoke is easy 
and my burden light." 

Why does Jesus say, "Agonize to enter" therein? 
He knows that the carnal man is prone to live in 
Lofty and divine fleshly indulgences, to the ex- 
ouTby C anfm1a tent that lofty, divine ideals are 

demands. , , , . , 

crushed out by the animal 
demand. The words "carnal and fleshly," did not 
necessarily mean active badness. They simply 
meant the animal life of the man. Animalism 
should not be confounded with diabolism- It is a 
mere negation while the latter is an actor. The 
mere animal man, like all other animals, never 
indulges in unnatural wickedness. Nature was the 
New Testament in olden times and it has not lost 
one jot or tittle of its authority yet. It was God's 
first and greatest book of parabolic instruction to 
the race. Nature was God's first prophet and she 
will be Ghrist's last apostle. She teaches both the 
infant and the adult, in both the kindergarten and 
the college, both in creation and redemption. 
Whatever is truly natural is truly good; but in a 
world so fallen and full of perverted passions and 
abnormal appetites, one needs to be very careful 
what he labels as "nature." Active badness is 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



125 



practiced only when men are possessed of an evil 
spirit. 

Wickedness is the fruit and proof of demoniacy. 
Carnality or fleshliness is only passive or negative 
badness, in that it makes the realization of the 
spiritual and the ideal impossible. 

Too many deem themselves free from carnality, 



simply because their active wickedness has been 
The pleasures of abandoned. If our delights are 



exemption from toil, and congenial companionship, 
all of which we hold in common with the ox or the 
ass, then in the fullest sense we are "carnal and 
walk as men." Only when, as saith the apostle, 
we keep our bodies under and bring them into sub- 
jection to the spiritual and the divine, are we 
spiritual and idealistic in our lives. It is written, 
"They that are Ghrist's have crucified the flesh 
with its affections and lusts." 

In the scale of moral ascension, from the animal to 
the ideal, man lives first in the exercise of the animal, 
The three brain then the intellectual and lastly 



floor and upper room of his life; and correspond to 
and prepare for hell, earth or heaven. When living 
in our "upper room," our benevolent and moral 



sense lower a 
man to a level 
with the ox. 



in the pleasures of sense, those 
of eating, drinking, sleeping, 



sections as 
the basement, 
ground floor and. 
upper room of 
life. 



the benevolent parts of his 
brain. The three brain sec- 
tions are the basement, ground 



124 



THE GOSPEL OF 



qualities are in direct contact with God and we 
receive Pentecostal inspirations and experiences 
from Him. When living in the dark basement of 
our mere animal qualities even our better natures 
have but a small growth and we are an easy prey to 
the devil, to whom we are in close proximity. 

Next to active wickedness, mere animal gratifi- 
cation should be looked on as defeat and death in 
Animal gratmca- embryo. Yet how eloquently 



indulgences, the "no harm" demons of modern 
religion. The devil himself seems to inspire their 
eloquence in pleading for this negation of all truly 
spiritual or ideal possibility. 

The scientist, the inventor, the natural system- 
builder need no exhortation here, but let me say to 
limitless possi- the S° s P el worker, that the 
reacS of^ftrue question, "What shall I pray for 

Christians. , , . . . , , £ 

or what is in the realm of 
possibility?" is both unscientific and uncalled for. 
The real question is, "What is the nature and 
strength of your longings?" The desire proves 
the possibility of its attainment, as well as the ex- 
tent of the same, for God would not mock His 
child by inspiring desire for an impossibility. The 
highest possibility is held before the child of God, 
in that he is divinely instructed to pray for the 
kingdom of God to come and His will to be done on 



tion is the seed 
of defeat and 
death. 



preachers and professors of 
religion will plead for animal 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 125 

earth as it is in heaven. This means limitless 
possibility. Consequently, it is written, "All things 
are possible to him that believeth." Those who 
know God aright will never doubt that blessings of 
every kind and degree, for body, mind and spirit are 
in His will for His people and that the opposite is 
not primarily found there. All the various orders 
and degrees of afflictions that curse the human 
race, are the direct or indirect fruit of sin; and 
since Redemption is a perfect antidote for sin, all 
kinds of blessings for soul, mind and body are in the 
atonement for all persons, at all times, in all places; 
but they are received by us only in measure ac- 
cording to our faith. Exernp- 

Aflliction not & * 

accidental but tion from affliction is God's 

providential. 

primary will for all who intelli- 
gently and believingly obey. Deliverance from 
affliction is his promise to penitent, believing obedi- 
ence, and a continuance of the affliction is but 
God's secondary or subsequent will, and that only 
for those who fail to learn the lesson of faith or 
obedience. 

It is written of the actively bad, "Thine own 
wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings 
shall reprove thee." The 

Base desire as 

ment vn punlsn " drunkard is permitted to gorge 
himself on liquor, till in his 
frenzy he pawns the coat off his back to secure a 
beverage to burn the coat off his stomach. He is 



126 THE GOSPEL OF 

glutted with the stuff, till he curses the day he 
ever saw it, and cries out in agony for deliverance 
from it. Thus with licentiousness, pride, money- 
getting and honor-seeking. If God is not privi- 
leged to hinder men's abnormal desires after those 
things, then His only hope is to let them gorge 
themselves on them till they are nauseated by 
them, loathe and abhor them and with breaking 
hearts and anguished spirits cry out to God for 
deliverance from them. Thus the Jews in the 
wilderness "lusted for flesh" and when God sent 
them quails, they gorged themselves till they "died 
with the meat in their teeth." 

God often makes the reacting consequences of 
men's sins to be the correction for their wrong 
Happiness essen- acts > s ° he ° f ten lets disease 
development of and defeat come to his children 

tne man. . . * . 

as a correction of things in 
their lives, that need wise adjustment under His 
direction. But it can be God's will only in a 
secondary sense, to see men corrected by the fruit 
of their sins. Jesus honored a truth, that it would 
be well for teachers and philosophers generally to 
recognize; that is, to bring out and develop the 
best elements in a child or man, they must be kept 
happy. But happiness is hardly possible in a high 
degree, where depravity, pain, ignorance, squalor, 
poverty, a lack of love, or sin of any sort holds 
sway. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



Consequently none of these things can be God's 
fundamental will for his people. True to this 



virtuous, believing keeper of his law; and deliver- 
ance from these things, to all penitent, believing 
transgressors of the same. 

We are told by the original reading of Rom. 12:1, 
that God would prove through us, that his will for 
Everything well the human family is good, ac- 



disease and premature death it would not be "good" 
or "acceptable" to any right thinking being. Con- 
sequently it is almost blasphemous to declare that 
God primarily sends these things, delights in or 
wills them. They are simply the fruit and partial 
punishment of our sin or that of our parents, though 
that act may be the mere result of ignorance, and a 
physiological rather than a theological transgres- 
sion. 

This recognition of a divine instruction in our 
afflictions honors a God of order and conduces to 



Affliction as an , 

instructor gipri- and naturalness of life. But 

nes a Godof order. 

the 4 go-it-blind" or "trust-to- 
luck" principle that makes disease or affliction 
wholly accidental and void of any instruction, 




Hon from these things to the 



Jdeasing to the 
udgment is in 
the will ot God. 



ceptable and perfect. If God 
primarily willed our suffering, 



carefulness and prayerfulness 



128 THE GOSPEL OF 

glorifies confusion, exalts chaotic ignorance and 
makes life and health uncertain and prayer and 
faith a mere superstition. "Only believe and thou 
shalt see the glory of God." 

It is not always congenial or easy to hold one's 
self to the pure affection, the magnanimous choice 
„ and the benevolent action, but 

What constitutes 

phe? 1 ° r plllloso " ne wno will knowingly do other- 
wise is almost a madman. He 
who chooses evil instead of good in order to follow 
the line of least resistance is demoniacal. He, who 
on the same principle, chooses the less of two 
good things is foolish. He only, who scorns all 
resistance and chooses the highest good, regardless 
of resistance, is truly philosophical. 

In a world so thoroughly left-handed and out of 
tune as this, it means fight or die; not to fight for 
The philosophy of present self-interest in a super- 
Ishnes^ai^lon- ficial sense, but rather fight 
against self, the base and un- 
worthy animalism. This is the real secret of true 
self-interest, from an enduring standpoint. Unless 
lofty thought and noble, benevolent choice is 
brought to our assistance, the spirit degenerates, 
the mind runs to weeds and the body falls to decay 
through bad living. From the invisible and internal 
life-spring, a vital, resisting power must be called 
by the magisterial, personal will, assisted by the 
grace of God or no amount of favorable surround- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 129 

ings will keep us free from degeneration and death, 
— death for want of an excuse to live. Look at 
your natural surroundings and see if there is any 
hope. 

The rotten apple amid a hundred sound ones has 
power to reduce them all to its state of decay; 

while the one hundred sound 

Disease a con- 
tagion, but good ones have no power to correct 

health not a 

article hand ^ e decomposition and restore 

the diseased unit. One man 
with a pestilence in company with a hundred 
healthy ones has power to inoculate the whole 
company with the virus of disease, while the com- 
bined influence of the entire company is unable to 
recapacitate the diseased member. A pain in the 
most insignificant and extreme portion of the body 
fills the whole with distress, while the freedom 
from disorder in all the other members cannot 
offset the agony produced by that one. 

This tendency to degenerate rather than regen- 
erate is the same that makes weeds and briers 
spring up and luxuriate of them- 

Nature's battery 

of action is left- selves in the hardest soil, while 

handed. 

vegetables, flowers and fruit 
must be planted in prepared soil and given con- 
stant attention. This left-handed application of 
the principle of prosperity is seen to exist in the 
mental and moral realm as fully as in the physical 

world. It proves that, in reference to nature's 
CEO 



130 THE GOSPEL OF 

battery of action, her positive pole is death, while 
life is but her negative pole. We are thus forced 
to look beyond the line of nature into the realm of 
the supernatural for our hope of glorious condi- 
tions. We are here warned against hoping for 
permanent relief from any mere created source. 
We are driven by nature to the very point where 
revelation invites us to come to seek for succor; 
viz- the footstool of the Almighty. 



GHAPTER VII. 



It is very foolish to suppose that nature which is 
a system of law and order ever came from the hand 
of a God who is himself a mighty anarchist, subject 
to no law in his dealings with natural agents and 
agencies. The Author of nature is also the author 
of law, and we have our sense of law because he 
possessed us with it. This recognition of law and 
order* as the only basis of harmonious relations and 
activities with each other, is instinctive in the race 
and is itself a proof that our Greator is a being who 
God Himself is embodies eternal order in his 
certein b iLel"of ° very essence and actions. We 
can have a more comprehensive 
understanding of God's personal attachment to law 
in all his supernatural and invisible activities, by 
investigating his actions in the visible and natural 
realm. In the forming and commissioning of blaz- 
ing systems and whirling worlds exact order is 
seen. In their ceaseless and regular activity, law 
is glorified. 

The astronomer measures distances and calcu- 
lates eclipses for a thousand years ahead with 
almost the accuracy of the Infinite, because law 



132 THE GOSPEL OF 

rules in the astronomical heavens which, "declare 
the glory of God." The mariner sails along a dan- 
gerous lee shore within a few yards of sunken 
The wonders of rocks and treacherous shoals, 
poSiwTnecanse in perfect safety, by the stellar 

law is universal. ^ ^ ^ fa ^ ^ 

orbs of endless day, months and even years before, 
because order sways the universe. The astrono- 
mer is placed in the dark hold of a vessel and sails 
all around the globe for years till his sense of 
chronology is confused and he does not know 
whether it is summer or winter. He is then landed 
on a rocky island uninhabited by man. He is not 
told whether he is in the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, 
or the Gaspian or the Garribean seas. He is given 
his instruments, paper and pencil and told the day 
of the month, and in less than an hour by the light 
of the stars he tells you in what body of water his 
island prison is located, and he concludes by telling 
you exactly how many miles it is to New York 
City, Peking, London, or St. Petersburg. If he is 
told in what body of water he is located he can tell 
the day of the month himself in a few minutes. 
This is all possible because of God's undivorcible 
wedlock to law, and his eternal adherance to the 
highest point of perfection in all his doings. As 
there cannot be more than one superlative point of 
perfection, God is bound to act every day alike 
under the same circumstances. The attributes 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 155 

of primary perfection and immutability in the 
Greator form the foundation of the stability of 
nature. 

Pass down through the animal, vegetable and 
mineral worlds to the formation of the ephemeral 
snow flake or the minutest 

Chaos Is ignored 

and law glorified atom, and chaos is ignored, 

in all nature. 

while law, nothing but unending 
law is seen or acknowledged. If, as His inspired 
words declare, His ways are as much higher than 
our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts as 
the heavens are higher than the earth, we can look 
for an adherence to law and order in all his actions, 
infinitely above the same faculty in us. The word 
law is often made use of when only a mere rule is 
meant. A natural law, however, properly speaking, 
is that eternal order of things that will bring about 
precisely the same results under exactly similar 
circumstances as often as the combinations are 
formed for endless ages- What we mean by moral 
law is a mere appeal to unfettered intelligence to 
exercise its power of choice in the light of the 
eternal Tightness of things, or of reward or punish- 
ment for the vice or virtue of the decision. Moral 
law appeals, but never forces. It is a principle of 
eternal rectitude, always demanding the highest 
possible exercise of one's highest powers, and re- 
sulting in the best possible effects under the cir- 
cumstances. 



1 54 THE GOSPEL OF 

In some sense God has placed himself under this 
law as well as us. In fact He places us under the 
obligation of keeping moral law that we might thus 
God nas placed harmonize with Him in His own 
5l?e 8 8ity n 2f r a?2 eternal embodiment of the 

ing through law. , , . 

same. God, then, being in- 
separably wedded to law, all his actions are neces- 
sarily based upon it. Thus God can be confidently 
relied upon as bound by law to always do the very 
best for all his creatures, in every possible way, 
under all circumstances, after taking into account 
their voluntary relations to Him through His 
natural and moral lav/. 

Answers to prayer are not incidents disconnected 
from law, but as perfectly under the principles of 
Answers to pray- cau se and effect in the higher 
certSVX 5fa%e- spiritual realm, as is the plant- 

matical results. . j . £ . , 

ing and reaping of a crop in the 
vegetable world, or the geometrical accuracy in the 
result of a mathematical problem. This being true 
there is no use in men coaxing and cajoling the 
Almighty to bless them, any more than they are 
now blessed, unless they determine to live better, 
in holiness or wisdom, than they are now living. 

An intelligent petitioner sees the need of search- 
ing his heart and life for causes that hinder the 
Almighty from sending greater blessings than are 
now being enjoyed. He sees the need of permit- 
ting his prayers to have a reactionary influence 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



155 



upon himself in constraining him to put himself in 
better and more harmonious relations to God, so 
that the Almighty can consistently send the desired 
prayer siionid be blessing. An intelligent peti- 



every one in the superlative degree, without any 
prolonged human entreaty, if He is not hindered by 
things in the life or moral circumstances of the 
petitioner. He therefore makes intelligent heart- 
searching and promises of righteous and wise ad- 
justment of life, in harmony with God's word and 
will, a large element in his prayers, so that God can 
be privilged to grant the petition in harmony with 
the moral law which He has bound himself never to 
violate. It is written, "Prepare ye the way of the 
Lord, make his paths straight." This implies that 
the Lord will come in blessing as soon as the 
seeker has fully prepared the way. On this very 
point the Prophet Malachi says, "Behold I will 
send my messenger and he shall prepare the way 
before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall sud- 
denly come to his temple." Again it is written 
that God's ear is not heavy that he cannot hear 
nor His arm shortened that He cannot save, but 
that men's sins and iniquities have separated be- 
tween God and them. 

This fact places prayer in the realm of intelli- 
gence, stamps all mere formal or mechanical 




tioner sees that God is always 
willing and anxious to bless 



136 THe GOSPEL OF 

prayers as unintelligent child's play, and it also 
accounts for all the unanswered prayers of the 
ages. I do not mean to imply by any means that 
The cause of fan- a11 there is of prayer is its re- 
5ng answersTo actionary influence upon the 
prayer. petitioner himself. God bles- 

sedly answers prayer. He always does so up to 
the highest degree possible in every case, consider- 
ing the voluntary relations to his law of the on*? 
praying, or the person or thing prayed for. What 
we desire to show is as Jesus said, "God is more 
willing to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
Him than parents are to give good gifts to their 
children," when we remove the moral hindrances to 
His doing so from our lives. Physical or mental 
conditions, for which we are responsible and which 
we can rectify, if we will, become moral hindrances 
by our refusal to do so. 

I am showing that the meaningless teasing of the 
Lord for blessings that never come is a burlesque 
unman choice on intelligent prayer, and that 
arb\^ary?viiithe the cause of unanswered prayer 
base of blessing. . g - n ^ e n yeQ 0 f ^ e petitioners 

themselves. The triune God through inspiration 
declares, ''Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are 
straitened in your own bowels." These moral con- 
ditions are wholly shaped by our own power of 
choice and not by God's arbitrary decision. This 
must ever be the case. There is no lack of mercy, 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



157 



love, intelligence, power, disposition or ability in 
God to bless all, in all kinds and degrees of bless- 
ing; the lack, while it exists must of necessity be 
in us, not in Him. 

God is above the necessity of an experiment. He 
has a perfect understanding from the first, and the 
The Almighty moral law before referred to, 
thS s S uperiktfve ln demands that all His actions be 
degree. done in the superlative degree. 

Therefore perfection always marks all the actions 
of God; and as there cannot be degrees in perfec- 
tion, it shuts God up to but one form of procedure, 
namely the perfect form, and one degree of attain- 
ment in all undertakings, peculiarly the highest 
possible. There is no such thing as good, better 
and best in God's primary decisions or untrammeled 
choices. Only as influenced and bound by ele- 
ments in us can God do less than the perfect thing 
for us; and even in considering such elements, as 
before stated, He then does the best for us under 
the circumstances. 

The degree of similarity between His latter and 
farmer actions must always be the degree of simi- 
our voluntary larity between the circum- 
an^n^ms^wni stances on the occasions, for 
the circumstances alone and 
not His arbitrary will influence his perfect decision 
in every case. All this is true in the spiritual 
world as well as in the physical, in grace as well as 
in nature. 



138 



THE GOSPEL OF 



God's very immutability and adherence to law is 
the element that makes His printed word today 
seem to thrill with a warm, quivering life-energy, 
God> immutabii- with apparently no lack of the 



vital and applicable to its present personal needs 
as it was in the ages gone by to the persons to 
whom it was originally addressed. The Apostle 
Peter declared that no portion of Scripture was of 
any private interpretation. Jesus said, "What I 
say unto one I say unto all." God's unchangeable- 
ness then demands that if 'He in Christ once said 
to a poor, heart-broken, believing, pleading peni- 
tent, "Thy sins which are many are all forgiven 
thee," He will always speak in the same way to all 
those who put themselves in exactly the same 
moral relations to Him. He must, if He is un- 
changing, speak to a praying, believing, sorrowing 
sister, "Thy brother shall rise again," "Only believe 
and thou shalt see the glory of God." His essen- 
tial nature demands that if He once said to a con- 
fessing, believing, praying, though dying thief, 
"Verily, I say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with 
me in paradise," He will speak today in exactly the 
same voice to any poor culprit who will put himself 
in the same moral or penitently believing relations 
to Him and His law. 

God, as the author and embodiment of law, is 



ity is tlie element 
that makes His 
Word vital. 



old, original vigor and authority. 
Faith finds the printed word as 



GAUSE AND EFFECT. 



139 



bound by His own very attributes to speak in 
Christ, to a weeping, praying, believing mother, by 
her daughter's dying bed, today as in the past, "0, 
woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as 

What God has thou wilt '" God ' S ver y 0mni " 
once done He will ^ • ^ „ ^ • 

do again if con- science, omnipotence, omni- 

ditions are met. , . , , 

presence and immutability are 
the pledges of the fact that He will forgive the 
sinner, cleanse the leper, heal the sick and cast out 
devils today as in the past, if a similar set of moral 
circumstances is brought about in faith, penitence, 
humiliation, earnest prayer and an intelligent and 
constant purpose to do His whole will. 

What is true of the individual in his prayer for 
deliverance from personal affliction, becomes 
what is true of equally true of communities, 
eran^e ?s al e(fuany states and nations in their col- 
lective appeal for deliverance 
from public affliction, such as war, pestilence, 
famine and plague. Though pseudo-scientists 
deny the possibility of a supernatural spiritual 
blessing and a divine and supernatural healing of 
the body and mind, and though an ignorant ministry 
or an unspiritual church membership endorse their 
fallacies or qualify either the spiritual blessing or 
the bodily healing practically out of existence, yet 
sound science and the very nature and being of 
God demand that both be definite facts today, as 
unlimited and free to penitent, intelligent faith as 
the natural air to the body. 



140 . THE GOSPEL OF 

This fact of God's eternal wedlock to law is the 
only unshaken foundation for faith or our hope 
that He will answer prayer at all. This truth 
God's eternal rescues prayer from the empire 

SSaker of accident and places it in the 

base of faith. , £ n , , . 

realm of law, under the princi- 
ples of cause and effect. It forms an inspiration to 
faith and an inducement to prayer and holy living, 
in that it leaves no question as to God's certainty 
of answering, if the conditions are intelligently 
met. If this divinely legal element of fixedness be 
denied a place in the realm of prayer, the result 
would be uncertainty, defeat and confusion of the 
direst kind. We look in vain for it in many places, 
however, and the results are just what might be 
expected; money, time, effort, influence spent 
largely in vain, the world a very ant hill of religious 
activity, yet but little divine or supernatural ac- 
complishment. This disgrace to Christianity is the 
infidel-making element of the age. Failure or de- 
feat in the work of God is a plain call to penitence, 
heart-searching, a truer and stronger faith* a 
clearer perception of the divine will and a better 
and wiser adjustment of life generally; as the 
cause of the failure must be in us and not in God. 
Inspiration declares, "If thou doest not well sin 
lieth at the door." 

There is no use in blind unbelief resisting this 
philosophic fact. Prejudice may close its eyes and 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 141 

refuse to see, but the man forfeits his own respect 
who shuts out the light. No individual's failure to 
individual fail- accomplish a verification of this 
f/tn^dS^trfne" 1 " truth in his own experience can 
of the gospel. - n any sense nullify it, as no 

doctrine of God's word can be based upon a mere 
man's experience. This is of neccessity so, for 
who is capable of deciding the true state of the 
heart, and head, and life of any one in his relations 
to God and nature, either in the past, present or 
future? 

Ignorance rather than wickedness, bad education 
rather than bad intentions, often leave well mean- 
wnat causes the in S Christians in the dark as to 
answe e rl°tS e p?ay- how to receive answers to their 
prayers, and they sometimes 
conclude that it was not the will of God to give them 
the desired mercy. This is an unintentional slan- 
der on God's love, mercy and benevolence. In- 
spiration declares, *'Ye ask and receive not because 
ye ask amiss." There is many a good man praying 
wide of the mark. His trouble may be psychologi- 
cal or physiological rather than theological, but if 
he intelligently, humbly and believingly continues 
to seek for the truth, God will providentially lead 
him to the light, unless he becomes a mere fossil of 
formality. An intelligent understanding of the 
will and power of Ghrist to penitents, through faith 
would banish this chaotic element from modern 



142 



THE GOSPEL OF 



Christianity, by revealing what the will of God is, 
and how, through faith in Ghrist, we can see it ac- 
complished. An intelligent and hearty determina- 
tion to assume right relations toward God and men, 
and heaven and earth, for time and eternity, is the 
only foundation for hope in prayer. It is written, 
"If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not 
hear me." From the activities of the eternal prin- 
ciple of Gause and Effect there comes into the lives 
of those who preach and plead for chaotic condi- 
tions a natural tendency to produce and perpetu- 
ate chaotic conditions. 

. The great apostle to the gentiles recognized this 
fundamental fact of law and order, in the dispens- 



recognized the fact that all the curses and afflic- 
tions of the race were also administered under law. 
He sets these two opposite principles in contrast 
with each other in the eighth chapter of Romans, 
in these words, "The law of the Spirit of life in 
Ghrist Jesus has made me free from the law of sin 
and death." It is plain to see that by "the law of 
sin and death," to which he referred, he meant 
that principle of instinctive and inherent badness, 
in the hearts of wicked men, that makes it more 
congenial and easy to do wrong than right. With 
the unconverted and wicked heart, it becomes 



Blessings and 
curses both met- 
ed out on the 
principle of law. 



ing to the people of the saving 
mercies of God in Ghrist Jesus. 
He even went farther, and 



CAUSE AND EFFEGT. 



143 



easier in some cases to falsify than to tell the 
truth, more natural to use profane language than 
to pray, more congenial to read novels than the 
eternal truth of God, more pleasant to trifle than 
to think; in short it becomes more suitable to the 
taste to do wrong than to do right. Now this prin- 
ciple, when active in the heart and life, is an em- 
bryotic inferno and a title deed to outer darkness 
forever, unless as the ' "strong man" it is 
"bound" by saving grace through faith and eventu- 
ally "cast out and its goods spoiled" by sanctifying 
power- 

"The law of the spirit of life in Ghrist Jesus" is 
that animated principle of instinctively righteous 



principle into the soul through faith in the finished 
work of Jesus. This infusion is so definitely 
marked as a germ of the divine life of Jesus, that 
persons experiencing it are called, "born of God," 
"born from above." This experience, though 
one of the highest spiritual nature, is yet received 
purely on the principle of law, and not accidentally 
or by some happy chance; because God is a being 
who eternally embodies law in all his activities, 
though this is a purely miraculous experience or 
one, in other words, received through the medium 
of a supernatural or purely spiritual law, in answer 



The law of the 
spirit of life in 
Christ explained. 



and divine vitality that reverses 
the abnormal order. It is the 
infusion of a supernatural life- 



144 THe GOSPEL OF 

to prayer, yet it is seen to be based on the prin 
ciple of Cause and Effect. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The realm of prayer can be divided, like the 
earth, into three distinct zones, the torrid, temper- 
ate and frigid. The torrid zone of prayer is 
bounded by the idea that God is amenable to no 
law or controlled by no element in the life of the 
petitioner, but can and does, generally answer 
earnest prayer, purely from the standpoint of His 
own arbitrary and miraculous power. This view 
never knows exactly where or how to find God, or 
in just what mood He will be 

The temperate, 

torrid and frigid found in reference to the special 

zones of prayer. r 

end desired, if found at all. This 
wrong view slanderously charges God's will, rather 
than the petitioner's life or notions, with much of the 
failure of prayer to receive answers- This un- 
sound and unworthy conception of God forms the 
torrid zone of prayer, or rather of fanaticism; for 
all fanaticism has its rise in this region and its 
foundation on this fallacy. Tens of thousands of 
radically minded but deceived Christians live in this 
accidental and chaotic sphere, all unsuspicious of 
that fact. 

The frigid zone of prayer is bounded by the idea 
CE10 



146 



THE GOSPEL OF 



that God is merely a synonym for nature itself, and 
that crystalized in the regular order of physical 
things, prayer must be void of all hope in the 
Godisuninten. supernatural to be effective. 
^ff&ftS^A" Though exactly opposite to the 
and ftigia zones former this so-called rationalist- 
ic view is equally slanderous of God, the prayer-hear- 
ing and covenant-keeping Father of our spirits. 
Here all formalism, the opposite of fanaticism, has 
its rise. Vast hordes of God's professed people 
have drifted into this frigid zone, who are scarcely 
aware of it. 

The temperate zone of prayer is that sphere 
where neither nature nor chaos is deified, but 
The temperate where a God of law, order, love 
and e i^ e |ffict e s d and power always answers the 
specified. intelligent prayers of all his 

penitent, believing, obedient supplicants. In this 
zone the spiritual growth is neither rank nor stunt- 
ed, as in the torrid and frigid spheres, but natural, 
certain, steady and satisfactory. Praise God! The 
happy dwellers in this temperate and edenic clime 
are forever at outs with a religion of anarchistic 
uncertainty, where all things are "without form 
and void," and darkness covers "the face of the 
deep." They are equally at outs with a sphere of 
pantheistic natural theology, where a personal God 
is petrified in the rocks, frozen in the icebergs, 
burned in the blazing suns and entirely unable to 
help either himself or others. 



CAUSE AND EFFEGT. 147 

Those temperate and intelligent disciples see a 
greater glory for God than either an ability to 
break away from all law to answer an unintelligent 
and erratic prayer, or the opposite trait of his em- 
The nappy dwell- balming himself in ice, rocks, or 
perife mSSa burning stellar worlds. Nature 

their works. . , , . , , . 

is to them but an elastic 
medium of the interchange of love and service be- 
tween God and man. Her beauty is adorned rather 
than outraged by an ability to gracefully bend to 
the will of God and his creatures; and this very 
elasticity and adaptibility of nature in opposition to 
the inflexible and mechanical idea, is a foundation 
for the Christian's hope, that God can and will hear 
his prayer, and through supernatural laws influence 
natural causes to produce an answer in his favor 
and for his good. This is the zone of intelligence, 
faith, blessing, and God's constant and conscious 
favor. In this zone alone is worthy accomplish- 
ment founded. Though much is done in the other 
spheres, intelligent and successful results are seen 
only in measure as the actors approach this temper- 
ate zone of true Christian intelligence. 

God is not obliged to change either His position 
or His intentions to answer any prayer. The plan of 
salvation is so perfect that God our Father need do 
nothing but sit with an index finger pointed at 
Jesus Christ throughout the age and that very act 
and fact will answer every true, believing Christ- 



148 



tHE GOSPEL OF 



ian's prayer. "It pleased the Father that in Him 
should all fullness dwell." He is our "all-suffi- 
ciency in all things." "All things are yours .... and 
ye are Ghrist's and Ghrist is God's." "Only be- 
lieve and thou shalt see the glory of God-" Jesus, 
Faith apprehends tne great teacher, who spake as 



need to harmonize with God and His plans, through 
repentance and faith and an intelligent adjustment 
of their moral relations; and this very harmoniza- 
tion with God will insure the desired blessing, for 
God is always anxious to bless where the condi- 
tions are made congenial. This is what is meant 
by "walking in the light." This euphonization of 
life in harmony with God especially in the heart's 
purposes, is essential as a foundation of true 
prayer. 

As the electricity is already in the wire waiting 
to shine out to those who press the button, or the 
power is already in the steam cylinder waiting to 



bless the man who opens the faucet, so the gospel 
power is all ready to be received, felt and enjoyed 
by those who meet the conditions of penitence and 
faith. "Gome for all things are now ready." The 
dying Savior said, "It is finished." Jesus becomes 



Christ and in Him 
ali things are 
secured. 



never man spake, will let light 
shine on men as to how they 



The power of the 
gospel certain to 
those who meet 
conditions. 



manifest itself to the man that 
throws the lever, and the water 
is already in the pipe waiting to 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



149 



the embodiment of all that His people need. He 
does not bestow blessings in the abstract, but He 
himself becomes the embodiment of the blessing. 
It is written that Christ is of God 'made unto us, 
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemp- 
tion." 

Christ intercedes in spirit through His praying 
people and their intense earnestness is expressive 
The reincarnated of His ardent desire for the 



us not then have we confidence toward God, and 
whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we 
keep His commandments, and do those things that 
are pleasing in His sight." If this inspired passage 
is true, it follows that there is something wrong in 
either head, heart or life with the petitioner whose 
prayers go unanswered. It is written again, "Light 
is sown for the righteous and gladness for the up- 
right in heart." It therefore follows that if "light" 
and "gladness" are not being received, our "right- 
eousness" and "uprightness of heart" need atten- 
tion. 

It is further written, "This is the confidence that 
we have in Him, that if we ask anything according 
to His will, He heareth us, and if we know that He 
heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we 
have the petitions that we desire of Him." The 
only unsettled question in this passage is, what is 



spirit of Jesus 
prays through 
His people. 



salvation of souls. It is 
written, "If our hearts condemn 



150 THE GOSPEL OF 

the will of God? In Romans 12 it is declared that 
His will is 'good and perfect and acceptable" in all 
things. Therefore if the desired end is a good in 
aii things good, itself > the above passage leaves 
??ptlbie a Sre a in no possibility of failure to faith. 

the will of God. Thig insp . red syllogism of the 

apostle of love, is a solid foundation for the intelli- 
gent prayer of faith. 

Back in the Mosaic dispensation, the Lord's 
particular sacrifice was either a bullock, a lamb or a 
dove, and no Jew was accepted unless the appro- 
priate sacrifice was offered. Today it is written, 
"The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite 

spirit Thou wilt not despise.'' This 

penitent and heart-broken condition must be pro- 
duced ere acceptance by God 

Bring the proper 

sacrifice and you can be received. The Lord has 

will be accepted. 

a way, however, that the most 
callous-hearted man can be provided with a sacri- 
fice. It is written, "If we confess our sins, He is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins." If the 
most hardened wretch alive will get down on his 
knees and honestly, actually and audibly begin to 
confess and deplore his sins, promise a rectification 
of life, and plead for God's forgiveness, his heart 
will break and groans and tears will come as a re- 
lief to his long outraged soul. 

In the ignoring of these conditions of divine ac- 
ceptance, we see a prime cause of so many unan- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



151 



swered prayers, abortive conversions, and incon- 
sistent religious professions. It is foolish to build 
one's house upon the "sand" of unconfessed and 
Foolish to build unforsaken sin. All such re- 



?£e sand of vl™ ligious professions will "fall" in 



fall thereof." Jesus said that wise men dig deep 
and build their house upon a rock. He also adds 
that though it was tested by wind and flood "it fell 
not." Thank God for a sure foundation. 

There is a difference between- the supernatural 
and the unnatural. There are elements in some 
remarkable prayers, we grant, that we personally 
might be unable to fathom, but that they are unfounded 
The infant divin- in ^w or divorced from perfect 



On the contrary, the more of the supernatural ele- 
ment we find in a prayer, the more closely does it 
adhere to the great and eternally fixed principles of 
cause and effect. The divine Spirit reincarnating 
himself in humanity pleads or intercedes through 
human lips. The "born again" life, the infant 
divinity within us, cries out instinctively and 
desperately to God, its natural Father, protector 
and all-sufficient helper. I would drop the vail on 
an intelligent, heaven-inspired and desperate 
prayer of faith, and declare that it is a frame of 
mind too sacred to analyze, lest I cast my pearls 



confessed sins. 



the tests, and "great will be the 



ity within us 
cries out for 
divine results. 



order, we cannot grant without 
an outrage of our own senses. 



152 THe GOSPEL OF 

before swine; though to the intelligent moral phil- 
osopher, it is fully capable of analysis. 

Since a God of law deals with His people on the 
intelligent principle of logic, the natural and essen- 
a praise service tial sequel to an intelligent 
Sn W iStliiige^t 8 prayer meeting is always a 
prayer meeting. grateful praise service. Where 
the praise service is lacking, the prayer meeting is 
proven to be humanly imperfect. On the principle 
of cause and effect, spontaneous bursts of praise 
follow intelligent prayer, as the fruit the flower or 
the heat the fire. Answers must come to intelli- 
gent, believing, obedient prayer, with a scientific 
certainty and a mathematical accuracy. The peo- 
ple of God generally must recognize this intelligent 
arrangement, and emigrate from the unintelligent 
frigid and torrid*zones of formalism and fanaticism 
into the temperate zone of cause and effect, where 
results are geometrically certain. 

The affinity of electricity for certain objects and 
its disposition to flow through certain mediums, as 
Grace, like eiec- water, copper and silver, ignor- 
pr\n^fpie°ratiier ing others, as glass, silk and 

thanwnini. [q ^ ft changeable or 

arbitrary choice, but a natural and essential choice. 
It is based on principle; and the very nature of 
the element forces the choice to be essentially and 
immutably thus. Since the nature of electricity 
cannot change, a change must be made in the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 153 

elements of the conducting medium or there will 
be no conduction. If the would-be conductor is 
transformed and the elements that are obnoxious 
are either eliminated or satisfactorily rearranged, 
the current flows through it at once, by the power 
of its natural affinity. 

Thus it is with the grace, power and blessing of 
God. His manifest disposition to answer certain 
a perfect har- prayers and use or bless cer- 
Go°di z ^ans win tain persons while ignoring 

secure His Help. ^ ^ baged Qn any 

whim or arbitrary choice on His part, but is based 
rather, on the essential nature of things. His very 
attributes and the moral nature of the elements in 
the person or the prayer in question, combine to 
force the exact results that appear. God's purity, 
wisdom, immutability and benevolence combine in a 
divine affinity for certain traits of character and 
certain physical results. A right knowledge of this 
fact and a wise adjustment of prayer, life and effort 
in harmony with the same, will infallibly secure 
satisfactory answers to prayer and the divine favor 
and blessing, while limited or fragmentary knowledge 
or adjustment will bestow but limited or fragmentary 
results. When satisfactory effects are wanting to 
prayer, the trouble is manifestly on the human side, 
and should be sought out in a lack of faith, or con- 
secration, ignorance of the truth, a lack of purity 
of intention or life, neglect of spiritual things, self- 



154 THE GOSPEL OF 

indulgence or such like human hindrance. 

God's love and life- will never "flow" into our 
lives or efforts until these antagonistic elements 
when ail wrong are discarded. It is written, 
aKdSnerGod "Behold, the Lord's hand is not 
Hears prayer. shortened that He cannot save, 
nor His ear heavy that He cannot hear, but your 
iniquities have separated between you and your 
God, and your sins have hid His face from you 
that He will not hear." This is plain logic, and 
it stamps all failure in the work of God as human 
and not divine. 

There is a painful lack of definiteness, a sense- 
less generalizing in much of our modern praying 
that is almost idiotic. Men aim 

Prayers aimed at 

nothing hit a at nothing in particular in their 

"bulls eye." ° r 

prayers, and they certainly hit 
just what they aim at. They keep on indefinitely 
praying for years, with no more results than are 
seen following the prayers of the priests of Mo- 
hammed or Confucius; and yet men label this 
barren ritualism with the name of a sensible and 
sacred Ghristianity. It is like threshing over 
empty straw year after year, until there is nothing 
left but dust and the rattle of the machine as a 
result. 

This travesty on the religion of a God of order is 
rapidly making Ghristianity a mere formal and his- 
toric religion, while the living, throbbing heart of 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 155 

the same, like its divine Originator, is wounded to 
death in the house of its friends. This principle of 
law and scientific certainty on God's part, in all His 
relations towards us, alone can rescue Christianity 
from the confusion of doubt and uncertainty that is 
rapidly relegating it to the rear as an active agency. 

Gonscious peace and union and communion v/ith 
God, instantly produce a burst of praise in 

Faith brings a tne lives of men « These in " 

vi?tory st i r nto tie spire confidence, beget hope 

minor tune of life. , . £ • , • r 

and infuse a major strain of 
victory into the minor tune of our lives. All 
nature, untouched by a divine power, speaks in a 
plaintive, minor tone, the song of the heart-broken 
and the defeated. The winds moan, the oceans 
groan, the brute family articulate, and even the 
most of the feathered family speak and sing in 
minor strains. In general only those people or 
nations who have some knowledge of the true God 
use the major strain. The natural tone of all long 
subjugated or heathen peoples is in a minor key. 
Hear the heart-wail in the plaintive, piteous, minor 
strains of the Irishman's or the African's national 
and natural song. 

This is true in general of all crushed or heathen 
people. It is the tone of the mirthless, the mourner. 
Its universality is a testimony to our present fallen 
and unnatural state, It is, as inspiration declares, 
the wail of the heart-broken and defeated. "The 



156 



THE GOSPEL OF 



whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
together until now, waiting for the manifestation oi 
the sons of God." Figuratively speaking, a minor 
strain is the hound on a cold scent. It is an aspira- 
tion rather than an inspiration. It is "a half-step 
short" of the major note of victory. It is express- 
ive of a lack of hope and confidence. 

This minor wail of assisted nature, this plaintive 
note of the groaning creation is in perfect accord 
The minor key; with the law of cause and 



through unbelief. How could the heathen, in his 
blindness and separation from God, as the true 
source of victory and success, sing in the major 
tones of victory? How could creation under its 
Author's conscious displeasure speak but in the 
language of the crushed and heart-broken? The 
captive Israelites said, "How can we sing the 
Lord's song in a strange land? We hanged our 
harps on the willows and wept when we remember- 
ed Zion." 

God's conscious presence and approbation is to 
His people like the ark of the covenant to the 
militant Israelites; it causes "the shout of a king in 
the camp;" it inspires a major strain of victory. 
Who has not felt a hollow heartlessness and faith- 
less formality in the baying of a hound on a cold 
scent? He crosses a warm track, and instantly a 



the wail of falle 
nature a result 
of sin. 



en 



effect- It is the natural result 
of estrangement from God, 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



15? 



piercing yelp of expectation and heartiness takes 
the place of his former spiritless speech. His eye 
flashes fire, his gait is accelerated, his tone is short 
and spirited and full of confidence, hope and ex- 
pectation, and his canine formalism is gone at once. 

Here are illustrations of both the minor and the 
major notes in nature and in grace. Enter a church 
canine formal- during prayer service, hear that 



sense of unsupplied want is the greatest element 
in the so-called prayer. His prayer is the very 
embodiment of defeat, death and discouragement. 
There is no life, love or buoyancy here. Everybody 
shivers and longs to have him stop, and the ordeal 
is so unpleasant that some of the would-be wor- 
shippers will not come to church again for a month. 
How different when some truly spiritual Christian 
prays out heartily and naturally, and victory, joy, 
praise and buoyancy are felt in every tone. God's 
conscious approbation or disapprobation, His favor 
or disfavor, respectively, is life or death, health or 
disease, joy or sorrow, peace or war, in both 
natural and spiritual things. The science of prayer 
is the secret of the Lord, and it is always revealed 
to those that fear Him. 

The whole life of the truly prayerful and wisely 
pious, becomes gradually more and more harmoni- 
ous and in tune with all nature and with the infinite 



Ism a type of 
some heartless 
prayers. 



formalist pray; it is as cold as 
an iceberg, and a chilly, painful 



158 



TH6 GOSPEL OF 



God himself. A grand symphony begins to come 
into all parts of his life when the man becomes 
truly and intelligently religious. Discordant and 



and their glorious opposites, with all their desirable 
effects are engrafted into the life. Surely, as it is 
written, 4 'The fear of the Lord is a tree of life." 

On the principle of cause and effect, the keeping 
of the commandments of God, bestows all the bene- 



have a truly hygienic and physiological base. He 
who heeds God's Word is benefitted by all the 
practical results of an infinite education, because 
a loving Omniscience inspired the commandments 
in harmony with the finest and divinest science. It 
has taken us thousands of years to find out that 
nearly all diseases are transmittable by infinitesimal 
germs. But God implied all this in the purification 
laws given to Moses for the guidance and safe- 
guarding of His people. 

We have been slow in seeing — at least in ac- 
knowledging—that unhealthful diet is the cause of 
many and fearful maladies among the people, but 
God implied all this in His hygienic laws against 
the use of physiologically unclean animals, birds 



A divine sym- 
phony comes into 
the life of the 
truly religious. 



jarring elements are purged out 
with all their nerve-racking and 
disease-producing influence, 



The principle on 
which obedience 
blesses the ignor- 
ant. 



dictions of a fine scientific edu- 
cation upon the ignorant, 
because the commandments 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 159 

and fishes, as recorded by the great law-giver. 
We have been ignorant or tardy in our sanitary 
efforts for the prevention of the cause or spread of 
The result of the disease, but the great inspired 
ba^ed f on°the ems Jewish statesman gave us ex- 
divinest science. ^\[ c [^ an( j complete instruction 

on this line in the book of Leviticus. We have been 
blind as bats to the true relations that should always 
exist, in purity and naturalness, between the sexes, 
and a nauseous stock of nameless, shameful and 
fatal distempers is the harvest of our ignorance 
and wilfulness as a race. 

Back in that dark day of crude knowledge, the 
Almighty could not explain all the why and the 
The reason why wherefore of these things; but 
^tswe n aog. He left a code of dogmatic com- 
mandments on record, the 
literal keeping of which would bestow all the prac- 
tical benefits of such knowledge upon the obedient. 
All God's other commandments are of like import, 
whether men see the reason for them or not. We 
prove our love by our implicit obedience and our 
remuneration or retribution will be the natural 
result of our harmony or inharmony with His law. 



CHAPTER IX. 



We are living in an age of intense learning and 
locomotion. Electricity and steam have almost 



and the commercial centers of the world almost as 
completely as if there were neither ocean nor 
mountain between them. Again, the printing press 
with its Bibles, encyclopedias," journals and news- 
papers is rapidly increasing knowledge. 

Astronomy has lately ransacked the heavens and 
brought to view planets, suns and systems before 



The telescope as . 

a camera to piio- orbits, weighed their bulk, de- 

tograph God. ° 



their speed, and told whether they recede or 
approach. It has calipered the world, calculated 
eclipses, measured the sun, classified its substance, 
defined the distance to the various planets and 
suns and caught the first appearances of light that 
has been thousands of years flying from its fiery 
source in orbs before unknown. In fact the tele- 
scope has been turned into a camera with which 



An age of loco- 
motion and learn- 
ing and its re- 
sult. 



annihilated space and time, and 
have united Calcutta, London, St. 
Petersburg, Pekin, New York 



unknown. It has mapped their 



scribed their elements, revealed 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 161 

the astronomer has endeavored to photograph the 
Greator in His laboratory of the heavens. "The 
heaven's declare the glory of God," for system and 
order are everywhere revealed. 

On the flinty page of nature's geological chart, 
revealed by a late-born and truer science, the foot- 
The footprints prints of Jehovah are plainly 
sL J n h o°n n h atu r re' S discernible, and the emerald 

geological chart. carpet Qf earth ^ ^ 

have dropped from the botanic looms of a God of 
order and omnipotence. This tardy knowledge is 
proven to be sound from the fact that it is in per- 
fect accordance with the Bible; and where Moses 
and the prophets were said to be wrong, science 
proves them to be inspired or else four thousand 
years ahead of the learning of their day. 

The human mind has been amazingly quickened 
and the inventive power in man marvelously 
The inventive awakened, doubtless that modes 
quickened Tor n a of locomotion and communica- 
purpose. ^ Qn De f ore un k n own should be 

opened up, in order to send the gospel to the re- 
motest nation, and herald the tidings of our Lord's 
approach and the coming millennium to the remot- 
est corner of the earth. 

In the second chapter of II Thessalonians, where 
Paul is particularly speaking of the coming end and 
the anti-christ that is to be dethroned, he asserts: 

"That day shall not come except there be a falling 
CEll 



162 THE GOSPEL OF 

away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son 
of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself 
above all that is called God." This "falling away" 
is the "famine of hearing the Word of the Lord," 
spoken of by Amos, the prophet. It does not take 
much research to see that this 

A famine of hear- 

o?^ne f iSrd Word spiritual falling away" is as 
widespread as virulant today 
and rapidly growing worse. And because of this 
fact that many of God's professed people have 
"pleasure in unrighteousness," he has threatened, 
through His servants Isaiah and Paul, in these last 
days to send men "strong delusion that they 
should believe a lie that they all might be damned 
who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in un- 
righteousness." Real spirituality is at an alarm- 
ingly low ebb in many of the denominations of the 
land. The spiritual principles and tenets that 
brought some of them into existence, are positively 
opposed by many of their present members, and 
very loosely adhered to by a majority of the re- 
mainder. 

Ostentatious reforms are fast taking the place 
of spirituality among the people of God. A golden 

Ostentatious re- a £ e is talked of and looked for 

stitSte a fo? Spirit- in the near future, as a result of 
uality * the various reforms of the day. 

Human progress and education are being made to 
usurp the place of the religion of Jesus, while God 



CAUSE AND EFFECTo 163 

is made an outlaw and the Bible but a fossil. The 
very principles of education and reform that con- 
stitute the base of this delusive hope, are seen by 
spiritual sight to contain not only the germs of 
their own defeat, but are the very essence, mind 
and spirit of the anti-Christ, divinely described in 
connection with this suject. The dominant ideas 
and popular reforms of our day, which are so much 
lauded, are the very things which are bringing 
about the falling away described by Paul, as the 
fore-runner and cause of the man of sin. Read 
II Thess. 2nd chapter. 

On every hand in modern pulpits we hear apolo- 
gies for the old time groans and tears of penitent 
popular apoio- sinners, and for the old-time 
time f ma2ifesta- modesty of apparel, and for the 
tion of tke spirit. s^Q^g 0 f j oy w hich have been 

replaced by ritualism and reform. The philoso- 
phies, politics, theologies and popular sciences of 
today tend to glorify carnality and deify the merely 
natural man. This baptized rationalism is the 
worst form of infidelity; while professing to believe 
in God it denies the practicability of the righteous 
principle of the gospel. 

Even our theological schools are not free from 
this snare, that does away with not only the 
scheme of redemption, but the God of creation also, 
and practically accepts of evolution. as the creator, 
original slime-pits as the laboratory of this strange 



164 THe GOSPEL OF 

god, and monkeys, alligators and tadpoles as the 
ancestors of the human race. The worshipers at 
a deification of this popular altar are very de- 
fo5wifmu^ soil voted to their peculiar deity, 
and after weeks and months of 
digging, delving and studious research,lay their offer- 
ings of antediluvian bones and fossils on his altar, ac- 
companied with modern spiders, snakes, worms, 
fish-scales, strange stones, half-formed animals of 
all descriptions, and so on. We do not advocate 
ignorance; would to God there were more real, 
practical learning in the land; but what we deplore 
is this culture-worship, this deification of human 
improvement, this science of mud rather than mind, 
soil rather than soul, dirt rather than Deity, which 
is being made the soul food for young ministers, 
and, in the minds of many, the highest education 
they can attain. This so-called "scientific" or "lib- 
eral spirit" of the age is to be greatly deplored in 
its subtle efforts to induce the church of Christ to 
abandon her divine mission, and resolve herself into 
a mere so-called scientific system of reform. 

Who can sufficiently deprecate that insidious 
spirit which under the guise of religious develop- 
Theoiogicai ment or human improvement, is 

SSS^oSF* ^st turning our theological 
nasiums. schools into mere scientific 

gymnasiums and literary museums, possessed of a 
secular rather than a sacred character? This 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 165 

spirit in many places has already either entirely ex- 
punged parts of the Bible or classed them among 
the apochryphal writings; and if followed much far- 
ther would leave us to depend entirely upon the 
philosophical distinctions and scientific theorems 
of heathen philosophers rather than the inspired 
Word of God for our salvation. 

The influence of these so-called Christian scien- 
tific institutions of our day is so wide-spread, so en- 
christian scien- chanting and powerful, as to 
gr fi odu?e ahetirS form almost the only religion of 
the professedly learned classes. 
It is not considered fashionable or in accord with 
good taste or sound sense, to build one's faith or 
hopes on the old-fashioned Bible alone. Science, 
"falsely so-called," must be made to piece out the 
Bible in its inefficiency (?) or take its place alto- 
gether. The living principles behind these effects 
are deeply rooted in the popular mind, and are fast 
bringing about a state of civil and religious anarchy 
and misrule, especially against the claims of God. 
As one consequence of these subtle influences, 
there is a great falling away already, and these 
"strong delusions" are even now giving rise to 
many erratic and wild theories and ideas. These 
in turn are producing many and baneful schisms 
and disruptions in the professed church of God. 

How big with hope and pregnant with promise 
are these words of Christ: "When He, the spirit of 



166 THE GOSPEL OF 

truth is come, He will lead you into all truth/' 
Humble, intelligent faith must ever lead true scien- 
The scientific ^ific research, in its quest for 
microscopic 116 the actings of God, as he sits di- 
mensionless and invisible, yet 
omnipotent and supreme to his universal laboratory. 
I see the pollen or fecundating element of a flower 
sent out from the stamen or male organ of a blossom 
carried over whole fields of flowers, by a subtle elec- 
tric affinity till it reaches its true botanic mate and 
deposits itself in the pistil or seed producing female 
faculty of this other self, with an accuracy that almost 
commands my belief in the plant's intelligence and 
volition. I see a subtle power build ferns, forests, 
spheres and creatures of symmetrical and fantastic 
shape in frost crystals on the window-pane. I see 
a falling temperature mysteriously turn moisture into 
snow flakes of a thousand beautiful and symmetrical 
figures. This crystalizing power transforms the vap- 
orous matter into diminutive stars, spheres, pyramids, 
crystals, prisms and mathematical wheels of the 
most complex and wonderful patterns. 

I experiment with chemicals and gases under the 
microscope, and I see the same principle greatly in- 
scientific won- tensified till the subtle chang- 
of God^5tt°r S i- tors ing of chemical particles seems 
! ' to almost prove the enduement 

of inanimate matter with life, and the minutest 
molecules with intelligence. I raise my eyes and 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



167 



see in the construction of plants and animals the 
same principles acting on a larger scale. I approach 
the telescope and scan the astronomical heavens, 
and millions of solar systems through all the etern- 
ity of space speak back in tones of light and music 
and declare this same subtle magic is the law, or 
mode of operation, that the infinite Greator adopted 
when he fashioned, empowered and commisioned 
us. This power is not synonomous with God in 
any sense; it is only his manifest mode of opera- 
tion, the law through which the self-existing God 
acts, and which he himself established. The whole 
visible world is but a proof of the presence and 
power of the invisible world, as physical entities are 
but a corporealizing of what was first ethereal and 
spiritual. The ultimate particle is yet in the fing- 
ers of the divine Greator, and faith has found the 
atom-factory to be the will and power of God. 
Life, light, space, matter, motion are but tangible 
revelations of the intangible God. 

Follow the chain of creation back to its remotest 
rise. Back of all laws and modes of action, back 
Follow creation's through organisms, molecules 



the minutest atoms are apparently constructed; 
what is that ultimate element, that original sub- 
stance or power which formed the earliest constitu- 
ents of matter? This question has no scientific answer. 



chain back to Its 
rise and you'll 
find God. 



and atoms, back of the ethereal 
or gaseous particles from which 



168 THE GOSPEL OF 

It universally gags the scholarship of unbelief, and 
the inspired page alone offers a satisfactory or at 
least a rational reply. 

The incomprehensible God made all things from him- 
self and upholds them by the word of his power. Our 
The capitals and refusal to acknowledge the ex- 
teS^ftife name istence of such a being necessi- 
tates our acceptance of an end- 
less number of infinitely more irrational conclu- 
sions, in pantheistic and self-originated material 
deities. The visible and invisible worlds, respec- 
tively in their normal state, are the negative and 
positive poles of a battery of universal life-energy* 
located in the will and power of God. The tele- 
scopic heavens and the microscopic earth are but 
the capitals and lower case-letters with which to 
chronicle the names and attributes of the triune 
God of creation, preservation and redemption. 



GHAPTER X. 



Distinctly separate from all irrational and irre- 
sponsible natural animals or elements, man, in his 



higher or broader ones. It is written: "Thou hast 
made him a little lower than the angels." Because 
of His ability to act upon natural elements from 
without, and by the free use of His volition to pro- 
duce, through the law of cause and effect, results 
that mere nature could never have accomplished, 
he becomes a morally responsible being. It is not 
our business to offer here an explanation or apology 
for God's bestowing the" awful power of choice 
upon man, any more than upon angels or devils. 
We expect the final analysis of all things to justify 
the action of the Almighty in this respect. What 
we are interested in now, is the fact of the exist- 
ence of this supernatural power of choice in man, 
its awful extent and the need of a wise use thereof. 

Moral self-consciousness, apart from all mere 
animalism, is so manifest that the soul instinctively 
blames the autocratic will for every base or grovel- 



Man a super- 
natural being as 
fully as God or 
angels 



lower spheres, forms an order 
of supernaturalness, as fully as 
God, angels or demons in their 



170 



THE GOSPEL OF 



ing choice, and commends this imperial power for 
every noble and lofty decision. These internal 
approvals or disapprovals of the choices of the 
Moral seif-con- magisterial will, are being in- 



ingrain in the spiritual, mental and physical devel- 
opment of the man. A revelation of this fact will 
be the awful element in the disclosures of the 
Judgment day when memory divinely quickened 
will reveal the true nature of those earthly choices 
and the fruits of the same, as fully as they felt the 
nature of them in the commendations or comdemna- 
tions of their conscience, when the decisions were 
made. 

Pantheistic scientists, who talk of atoms forming 
themselves into molecules, and molecules forming 
themselves into protoplasm, and protoplasm forming 
The diminutive itself into tissue, from which 



minified deity, as three hundred billion molecules 
are said to be condensed into the surface of a 
square inch, and nearly 2000 atoms into one mole- 
cule. This almost unthinkable speck, this infini- 
tessimal atom, is the infidel scientists^ creator, 
who, "made all things and without him was not 
anything made that was made." Most of them 
presumably have religion enough to please their 
diminutive deity. 



sciousness 
proves man's 
responsibility. 



delibly registered upon the 
tablets of the memory, and laid 



deity of the pan- 
theistic scien- 
tists. 



plants and animals are made, 
would leave us with a rather 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 171 

What is protoplasm, anyhow? Scientists answer, 
"It is a structureless, homogeneous, solution 
formed of molecules, brought together by a law of 
More faith to molecular motion." Then we 
|iStic W g ^t£aS ask, What are molecules? and 

the Bible God. ^ ^ pQwer ^ ^ < w Qf 

molecular motion?" The pantheistic scholars 
glibly answer, "Molecules are composed of infini- 
tessimal atoms, held together by a mode of motion 
called atomic attraction." Then we ask, What 
are atoms? where did they come from? who made 
them? where did he find his material? who is re- 
sponsible for the law of atomic attraction? The 
pseudo-scientist blushes, clears his throat and runs 
off into a meaningless jargon about the invisible 
and almost unknown ether and its wave-motion. 
He seems to overlook the fact that if this subtle 
substance can do anything itself, it must have 
mind, will, choice, power and all that is asked for 
God himself. If this substance is acknowledged to 
be the creation of some more remote entity, then 
that ultimate element must have those personal 
powers or faculties. 

God himself, the eternal and self-existent 
Creator, is the living energy in all normal and right 
phenomena, whether in the visible or invisible, the 
natural or the supernatural worlds. There is no 
escaping this verdict; we must admit an eternally 
self-existent God or rush into the worse heresy of 



1T2 THE GOSPEL OF 

self-creative and self-existent, though inanimate 
matter. 

This disposition to make God an outlaw and ex- 
communicate Him from His own universe is itself 
a disposition to a Plain proof of the degeneracy 

make God. an out- j • £ j £ 

law proves man's ana ignorance or man, ana 01 

fallen state. , - , . , 

the need of an inspired book 
like the Bible. That old Book declares, "After 
that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom 
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of 
preaching to save them that believe." The truly 
scientific Ghristian says; "Through the telescope, 
the spectroscope, the microscope, and other 
instruments we have learned something of the 
invisible God's visible modes of operation; but the 
mighty Greator, Founder and Father of all things, 
is even more essential to the solution of our pro- 
blems now than He was ere our biological 
researches began. What is motion, ether or elec- 
tricity, but partially understood manifestations of 
the unmanifested God of creation? 

Matter itself in its finest elements manifests ether- 
eal heat, motion, affinity, assimilation and repulsion. 
God being an ab- Where could matter have become 
mat^Veeome thus empowered, if there were 
empowered? nQ personal> mighty Creator? 

Where could matter have acquired its very exist- 
ence, if the Christian's God were from all eternity 
an absentee in the universe? Matter is to real 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 1ZZ 

intelligence the very proof of His presence and 
power. Its subtle constructionary and recon- 
structionary movements force unbelieving ignor- 
ance to assert its self-existence or vitality. Ignor- 
ance and prejudice are driven to those straits to 
keep from acknowledging the existence of a God of 
wisdom, love and power. 

Hear the infidel scientist assert that, "proto- 
plasm organizes itself into cells and tissues in the 
The pantheistic same sense as ato ™s organize 
feif ftSmn S othi££ themselves into molecules and 
by nothing. molecules into crystals of 

various sorts." All honor to this protoplastic deity, 
which has power to originate its own being or beget 
itself from nothing through the exercise of nothing 
upon nothing. Another so-called scientist of 
great repute declares, "Protoplasm contains the ele- 
ments of all natural substances, and from it they are 
formed by a gravitative power inherent in itself." 
This is the sickest and most self-evident sophistry 
that we ever saw capable of kicking against the 
pricks of inspiration. This substitution of dirt for 
Deity is a reversal of the old scriptural order; it is 
an instance of the wicked calling the righteous to 
repentance, and the devil trying to cast out God. 

Gontrivance proves a contriver. A highly com- 
plex machine proves the existence of a machinist. 
It also reveals some of his attributes, as will, choice, 
power and appreciation; but this is a very limited 



174 



THE GOSPEL OF 



photograph of the man. Unless he makes a 
farther revelation of himself, our acquaintance with 
him will be largely conjectural. Is he good or bad? 
white or black? large or small? loving or hateful? 
benevolent or penurious? The answers to these 
questions demand a revelation beyond what is seen 



tence, omnipresence and immutability, are proven 
thereby. It is written in Paul's letter to the 
Romans, "The invisible things of God from the 
foundation of the world are clearly seen, being 
understood (or revealed) by the things that are 
made, even His eternal power and God-head." 
This limited knowledge would have been of small 
avail to humanity had not God made a further 
revelation of himself. 

Heathenism of the rankest kind is the legitimate 
result of trying to base a religious life or system on 
Result of basing this meager natural knowledge 



will and purposes toward man, than this meager 
glimpse was desirable, natural, reasonable, and 
from the very nature of the interested parties and 
their relationships and circumstances, essential, to 
the dignity of the Greator and the intelligence oi 




religion on na- 
ture without 
revelation. 



of the Greator. A further 
revelation of himself in His 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 175 

the creature. This revelation we have, thank God, 
in the grand old Book that has stood the tests of 
ages. Its greatest test is and ever has been the 
ignorance or inconsistency of its friends. The 
words, "Wounded in the house of its friends" are 
as true of revelation as of the original Revelator, 
and the church as well as the republic lives on by a 
divine interposition, in spite of the mistakes of its 
ministers. ' 

Revelation is progressive. God is teaching 
fallen man a glorious lesson in true theology. The 
Revelation is progressive revelation of God 

PefeStbutapa^ and His plans needs to be fin- 

fial knowledge. t() bg appreciate(L The 

Patriarchal, Mosaic, Christian and Millennial dis- 
pensations form the preparatory, intermediate, 
junior and senior dispensational years, necessary to 
complete the education of the human family, for 
the grand "commencement exercises" of the final 
Judgment day, opening into a business career in 
eternity. The brightest and best of us are but 
"juniors" or "freshmen" and many are "too fresh" 
with criticisms, objections and rejections which 
expose their own ignorance, but in no sense hinder 
the unfolding of the broader theology of the ages. 
He is rather an egotistic "freshmen" who criticizes 
the standard text books, the president, the faculty 
and general curriculum. The present is but a 
partial knowledge, a fragmentary education at best. 



176 THE GOSPEL OF 

We "know in part, . . . but when that which is per- 
fect is come then that which is in part shall be 
done away." "Now we see through a glass darkly, 
but then face to face." If we cannot wait until we 
receive the heavenly diploma, let us at least wait 
until we enter the millennial "senior class" ere we 
criticize redemption's course of study. 

These four dispensations are distinct advance 
steps in divine revelation. "There remaineth yet 
The^infanY and much land to be possessed." 
of tout2snown C by Not only is each dispensation a 

the life of Jesus. £ , , . , , 

further revelation and an ad- 
vance on the one before it, but the dispensation 
itself is progressive, an unfolding, expanding and 
exalting of the special dispensational idea. The 
divine life in the soul of each individual believer is 
like the earthly life of Jesus; it .expands from an 
experimental infancy to a miracle-working adult 
experience. Our first conceptions of Jesus reveal 
Him to us as He was seen by the "wise men of the 
East," an infantile being, divine of course, but very 
limited and frail. But as our acquaintance with 
Him grows through the experience of years, our 
truer conceptions of Jesus reveal his more adult 
proportions, divine faculties and limitless abilities ag 
the miracle-working Jesus, the Mighty to save, the 
coming millennial King. The great bane of Chris- 
tianity has always been fossilization, non-advance- 
ment, a refusal to progress beyond a certain point 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



177 



in divine knowledge or true Ghristian development. 
What one has already attained to may be divine, 
but the danger is in thinking that it is all the divine 
there is obtainable. Egotism and the non-pro- 
gression of a petrified theology at this point has 
made many a real heretic condemn the true Ghris- 
tian for heresy. Well is it for both the writer and 
the reader if they are innocent here. 

The soul instinctively feels that its long-sought 
rest can be found only in union and communion with a 



ance with the Greator. There is a void within the 
human heart which God alone can fill. That void 
within us was made by the loss of the divine na- 
ture and the favor of our heavenly Father in the 
Adamic fall. In Christ we are, as the apostle says, 
"made partakers of the divine nature." Man is 
"born of God." This universal appetite for ac- 
quaintance with Deity, this common capacity and 
hunger for the supernatural, is no mean proof of 
God's existence and worshipfulness, and of our 
former sonship to Him and our present degeneracy 
and estrangement from Him. No other creature 
has those longings but man, and he has them 
universally in a very large degree. This very 
universal, though perverted capacity and appetite 
for God and the supernatural, is what makes the 



The longing for 
acquaintance 
with God proves 
its possibility. 



supernatural God. The uni- 
versal experience of the race is 
that it hungers for acquaint- 



CE12 



17B TH6 GOSPEL Of 

human heart a fertile field for the rankest impos- 
tures in religion where their claims to the super- 
natural appeal to men. From the foulest idolatry 
down through Romanism, Mormonism, Spiritualism, 
and the senseless sophistry of Mrs. Eddy's im- 
materialistic mind-cureism, this faculty in man 
forms the basis of their successful progagation. 

No effort to show men that it is foolish to believe 
in God, will have any great success. Man instinct- 
ively feels that there is a capacity and a desire in 
him for acquaintance with God. 

Man is not at rest 

tiii peace is made The true satisfaction of this 

with God. 

universal appetite and capacity, 
in acquaintance and communion with creation's 
and redemption's God, is the only solution of the 
problem. This, a right understanding of the simple 
gospel of redemption, is fully competent to accom- 
plish. The soul will forever be disquieted and 
burdened with doubts and misgivings until it finds 
its original heaven in the conscious favor of its 
Creator and God. It is written, "There is no 
peace, saith my God, to the wicked." And again, 
"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of 
God." Acquaintance with God, and the making of 
a just, wise and worshipful use of that acquaint- 
ance, is the real end of this life, and the only hope 
of its exalted and worthy continuance. "This is 
life eternal that they might know thee, the only 
. true God, and Jesus Ghrist whom thou hast sent." 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



179 



Taking man in his highest Ghristian aspects, who 
can caliper, define or weigh him? Wonderful as he 
is in intellect, influencing the springs of natural 



spiritual influence. I have known Ghristian men 
and women whose very presence was a miracle 
of benign influence. A subtle dignity attended their 
presence, which soothed, exhilarated, rested or re- 
freshed the spirit, as the most nourishing food 
would the body, or the most agreeable, inspiring 
news the mind. You chat, walk and eat with 
them, but you feel you do not know them. There 
is an unfamiliar element in your familiarity with 
them. You are pleased, exalted and almost 
blessed by their presence, yet there is a mystery 
about them that your acquaintance does not 
fathom. You feel your courage is strengthened, 
your hope inspired, your troubled spirit reassured 
and soothed, your wounded feelings healed, and 
yet they have done or said little indeed. Even 
prejudice cannot entirely defend itself against this 
influence. You feel that the buoyancy and healing 
of their presence is in the realm of spiritual in- 
fluences or action rather than in the realm of lan- 
guage, and you almost ask, "Is this person a subtle, 
semi-incarnation of Deity? or, what is this strange, 
mystic influence which, phantom-like, enters my 



The miracle of 
holy influence 
which some men 
exercise. 



cause and effect, yet more 
wonderful in the exercise of a 
limitless and incomprehensible 



180 THE GOSPEL OF 

life in the presence of those strong yet humble 
Christian people?" 

The question almost suggests the only rational 
reply. This is true in some degree of all truly 
is man in Ms noble, magnanimous and cour- 
sulti% s ^e a inctrna^ ageous souls. The divinity of 
an indwelling Christ is emitting 
those benign and healing influences that the mere 
unassisted animal and intellectual man could never 
exercise. The person exercising this holy influence 
is generally unconscious of it at the time; and if in 
his own strength or for any selfish purpose or ig- 
noble end one tries to imitate this or similar in- 
fluences, his real accomplishment is but the most 
shameless and flagrant caricature of the same. 
This subtle sanctity, in its divine benignity, is a 
fruit and proof of our sonship to Deity and of the 
divinity of Christianity. Most of us have been 
conscious of exactly opposite influences from the 
lives and presence of wicked and demon possessed 
men; for by the sanction of the personal will, the 
devil is permitted to incarnate himself in some men 
as fully as God is in others. 

Some one answers, that it is the faith, courage, 
self-reliance, love, humility or consideration for 
others, in the man's life that thus influences men, 
and not the divinity at all. We answer, what is 
their faith, courage, self-reliance, love, humility or 
consideration of us and of our circumstances, but 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 181 

an expression and proof of the presence of the 
love-life of God in them? Good men are not thus 
soothed, refreshed or thrown into semi-inspirations 
wondiy-minded b V the presence of the natural 
Pelsov^erliS; courage, self-confidence or 
the influence. per sonal interest of worldly- 
minded or infidel men, but rather the opposite. 
Who is not pleased with a great, humble man, 
whose unostentation makes him apparently un- 
conscious of his own greatness? Who does not 
enjoy worth when its modesty makes it appear 
mean, and it acts humbly displeased with itself? 
The possession and exercise of this divinity of 
influence and power is the privilege and in some 
sense the duty of every Christian. Christ would, 
in a sense, reincarnate himself in his people, and 
the divinity thus manifest in the Christian's life 
would form the mightiest attraction of the gospel. 

Jesus is the believer's great model and pattern. 
His earthly life is God's best expression, dear 
Christ is God's reader, of what you and I in our 
w^tTchrfstian limited spheres should be. You 
must not accredit Him with the 
exercise of a power that is beyond our reach. His 
natural divinity was voluntarily suspended that 
through the Spirit's empowerings alone he might 
"be in all things made like unto His brethren." 
"For verily He took not on Him the nature of 
angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." 



182 



THE GOSPEL OF 



After His voluntary baptism the human spirit of 
Jesus became supernaturally empowered by the 
agency of the Holy Spirit, rather than by virtue of 
an eternal, divine sonship which existed from the 
eternities past. The miraclous influence He 
exercised was not an innate and constitutional 
power, but was received through the medium 
of the Holy Ghost which medium is open to His 
followers. Read Acts 10 and 58, Isa. 61:1—4. 
It was in reference to this very fact of the 
spiritual reincarnation of Ghrist in the Ghristian 
that Jesus said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
men unto me." He disembodied Himself for His 
people that He might re-embody himself in them. 
He died for them that they might live for Him. 
He endured what they deserved to endure, that 
they might be privileged to enjoy what He de- 
served to enjoy. He died our kind of a death that 
we might live His kind of a life. 

In leaving this world Jesus left us His power of 
attorney to carry on His business in His absence. 
The christian is The true Christian who lives in 

Chx^st'sTower^of the Spirit, Speaks With author- 
attorney. ity> He d()es business in 

Ghrist's name, on His capital, with His authority, 
for His glory and under the immediate supervision 
and direction of His Spirit. Two tuning-forks of 
exactly the same key may be set in different 
sounding boards, close together, and on striking 
one and then suddenly stopping its vibrations, it 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. m 183 

will be noticed that the other is sounding quite 
audibly. The unity and sympathy between those 
two instruments, attached merely by the ethereal 
vibrations in the air, make one to be but the echo 
of the other. If this same tuning-fork is heavily 
painted over, or if it is in another key, no such 
manifestations of sympathy or unity are noticed. 

Thus when our hearts, our true inner spirits, are 
purified through grace to symphonize or accord 
An illustration of with the infinite Christ in grace 
^encSrfs^and and nature, our sympathy with 

His people. . n aU Hig plans effortSj 

brings about through the Spirit's ethereal medium, 
a unity between us and divinity, that saves from 
jarring discordancies and makes our lives but 
reflections of the Deity, and our efforts but the re- 
echoing of the operations of Jesus. Paul said, 
"For me to live is Christ;" and Jesus said, "It is 
not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father 
that speaketh in you." This is never the case 
while sin has coated us over with its isolating sub- 
stance, or where the world or self has been per- 
mitted to pitch the key note of our lives out of 
harmony with God. Oh, that men would abandon 
their unbelief and animalism, and no longer label as 
heresy those glorious advance truths of a latent 
Christianity. Oh, that the people of God, saved 
from carnal, unbelieving animalism, would awake 
from the sleep of ages, and arise to their glorious 
privileges through faith in a limitless redemption. 



GHAPTER XI. 



That chemical change which we see going on in 
the body of a plant or animal after the vital spark is 
gone, is the activity of the principle of dissolution. 
It is more than a mere back-acting principle of life, 
preparing its future food, even though its results in 
resolving those bodies to their constituent elements 
are afterwards made use of by nature to develop 
life in its various forms- That principle of disso- 
lution is a plain manifestation or activity of a law 
of death; a zero principle that, if unhindered, 
would become a negation of all 

The activity of _ 

the principles of creature life. The same is 

life and death. 

seen in the gradual dissolution 
of stone and all earthly elements, even to the hard- 
est metal. The very absence or inactivity of the 
creative or positive powers that gave those sub- 
stances being, licenses this negative entity, this 
principle of death, to claim them for its prey. 
Thus it is seen that if there is activity at all in a 
body which is out of touch or harmony with the 
life element which gave it being, the motion in that 
body is the activity of dissolution. This is true 
in the mechanical as well as in the vegetable and 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



185 



and animal worlds. The scrap pile is the goal for 
which the locomotive starts on leaving the shop 
door, as surely as all animal activity is but locomo- 
tion toward the graveyard. The running war 
between the principles of animation and inanima- 
tion is sure to always eventuate fatally to life, un- 
less union with God, a f s the origin and supply of the 
same be established and continued. 

It is a travesty on the Almighty to say that 
things were originally created by Him as we find 



worthy of His limitless and perfect creative abili- 
ties. God is a being whose primary and unalloyed 
works always display order, harmony and euphoni- 
ous accord. When this element is lacking in a 
creature, the displacing, chaotic and discordant 
elements, revealing a diseased condition, prove the 
creature to be in some sense in wrong or unnatural 
relations to God its Creator; and wrong relations 
to the source of life and harmony are necessarily a 
dying state. Here is the fountain of universal 
death. Here, in estrangement from God the 
source of life, is the spring of this world's woes and 
its universal mortality. Separation from the 
source of life leaves all things a prey to the princi- 
ple of death. 

What is this agent that causes the present nega- 



Estrangement 
from God as ttie 
source of all 
death. 



them today. His very nature 
forbids it. All God's works 
originally were necessarily 



186 THE GOSPEL OF 

tion of life, health, purity, happiness and intelli- 
gence? If we can find the positive, the creative or 
constructionary power, it will in character and 
location reveal its opposite, the 

Patau is the an- 
tipodes of God in negative or destructive power. 

From various standpoints we 
have shown that a personal, powerful and intelli- 
gent God begot all things from himself originally, 
when all things were good and worthy. There are 
many things on the earth today that God did not 
directly beget. They are hybrids, mongrels, degen- 
erates, corruptions and noxious and pestilential ani- 
mals, insects and plants, that came here from a 
satanic source through sin, such as disease germs, 
weeds, briers and thistles which are curses from 
God's permissive providence on human disobedience. 

If God is the author of all life, health, virtue and 
intelligence, then, plainly, a being though limited, yet 

the exact reverse of God in all 

The source or ... , 

cause of the things, in other words, the devil 

devil's existence. 

is the author of their opposites, 
as death, dissolution, misery, vice and ignorance. The 
essential and original power of choice, or free moral 
angency of angelic beings necessarily presupposed 
the liberty to sin as well as to do right. A perver- 
sion of this essential power of moral choice to a bad 
end by Lucifer, an angelic being, resulted in the 
begetting of the devil, through the reception into 
his nature of moral evil, as original sinless man 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 18? 

afterward became a sinner. This is human history 
foreshadowed. 

The pre-existence of a personal devil is, in the very 
nature of things, essential to the perpetuation of death 
The being of an( * dissolution. The scriptural 

S ™SSStS teaching of the being and power 

ation of death. of Satan> unpopular though it is, 

is nevertheless a philosophical necessity. Genesis 
1st chapter reads in the original, "In the beginning 
God was creating the heavens and the earth." 
Creation is perpetual; spiritually it is not finished 
yet. Its spiritual completion will perfectly in- 
augurate its physical regeneration. Construction 
and dissolution go on together. The builder and 
the destroyer are both active. Birth pangs and 
death groans make discord everywhere, the cradle 
and coffin are side by side, but thank God! it will 
not be so always. It was not always so. 

There was a time, beneath the glorious groves of 
Eden ere sin and death appeared when all creation 
was divinely pronounced, "very 

The promise of 

the incarceration good. It Will be SO again, 
of the devil. & ' 

when,as the Word of God 
declares, this author of misery and death, this 
agent which causes the negation of life and happi- 
ness, is, through arrest and incarceration, robbed 
of the power to perpetuate his heart-principles of 
ignorance, falsehood, misery and death. Inspira- 
tion tells of a time when an angel of heaven shall 



188 THe GOSPEL OF 

actually arrest, bind and incarcerate this arch-foe 
of the race, who is a negative element in all intelli- 
gent, righteous aggression and a positive element 
in all unintelligent, hurtful or destructive aggression 
the world over. 

When Satan shall be thus incarcerated, and his 
baneful influences banished from the globe, inspira- 
tion declares that the result 

Tlie results of the 

incarceration of will be exactly what philosophy 
would call for under such con- 
ditions; namely, a universal manifestation of God 
on earth, an apparent and glorious unity displaying 
itself immediately between the Greator and His 
creation. The harmony and unity between God 
and the world, between visible, created things and 
the invisible but personal powers, will beome at 
once as faultless as the unity between the most 
perfect soul and body. This unity is held out of 
balance today only by the human sanction of 
Satan's presence and suggestions, and by man's 
voluntarily yielding to the sophistical domination of 
the devil. 

Sin itself and disease and death as well, though 
awful facts in themselves are nevertheless the 
fruit of a fallacy. All badness is 

The basal blun- _ . 

der of the Christ- unnatural and is basea on a lie. 

ian scientists. 

Herein lies the grand basal 
blunder of so-called Christian Science. They do not 
distinguish between the fallacy of Satan's sugges- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 189 

tions and the sin and misery that follow actions based 
upon the same. Sin cannot be permitted to live 
or propagate itself where truth is intelligently 
grasped. Produce the whole truth, reveal it to 
believing, appreciative intelligence, and Satan and 
his universal works in helplessness go down at 
once. All true power and benign results are re- 
ceived through the application of sound principles 
to normal elements. Vary either the one or the 
other and a false and destructive result will follow. 
In this way does Satan become a creator in appear- 
ance only. He is not a creator in any true sense. 
He is a mere degenerator and muddler, in contra- 
distinction from God as a true generator and 
modeler. Through human obedience to his false 
suggestions, he lyingly combines uncongenial ele- 
ments, that produce unnatural and destructive re- 
sults, even to diseases which afterwards become 
contagious. 

National, as well as individual plague and pesti- 
lence, are often the fruit as well as the punishment 
of human acquiescence in these 

Plague as tlie In- 
direct punish- satanic plans. His infernal 
ment of badness. 

majesty is conducting his busi- 
ness and boasting, on a mere squatter's right. 
Though a personal being, and powerful as personal 
apart from Ghrist, yet he is as powerless as a myth 
in the presence of a believing, intelligent recogni- 
tion of the truth as it is embodied in Ghrist and the 
crucifixion. Satan is a usurper, a pretender. 



190 THE GOSPEL OF 

In Eden Satan chose the place of a liar and a 
parasite, and this must be his real character, to the 
end of the chapter. He is a disembodied and out- 
lawed spirit, and consequently has no true, innate 
rights, or real, inherent abili- 
i?*and a s pa?asit?r ties, on earth, especially among 
physical things, except as he is 
permitted by humanity to deceive them, and fallaci- 
ously use their faculties and powers. He cannot 
move a hair on our heads except as we permit him 
to come into our hearts through yielding to his lies; 
but should we yield, then we become in part at 
least under his power, and subject to punishment 
for the wrong deeds which he inspires. He trans- 
forms himself into an angel of light, and presents his 
disguised temptations to humanity, offering sensual 
or selfish pleasure as the price of disobedience to 
nature's law and God's commandment. 

If this 4 mess of pottage" is chosen by man, the 
loss of his "birthright and blessing" is the conse- 
quence in part, but not all; for 
hat°eS e corpus*» f Satan, through the medium of 
humanity's yielding to him, is 
given an opportunity to incarnate himself in them, 
and further pervert their passions, appetites and 
aims. They have loaned their faculties to him, and 
he is slow to return the borrowed tools without a 
struggle and a divine law suit, (so to speak); but an 
earnest appeal to his ancient Conqueror, "the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 191 

Captain of our Salvation," makes him yield at once. 
A gospel "writ of habeas corpus," presented in 
faith and penitence, makes him deliver the property 
in a hurry. If Satan is given the privilege of 
incarnating himself in men, he deceives them into 
thinking they are having their own way; when in 
following their perverted passions and appetites* 
they are really following his guidance and doing his 
will, and that to their own ruin. The very reverse 
of all this is true if God is received into the heart 
and obeyed by faith. 

Satan, then, has no true, personal or inherent 
power; his apparent power, or rather the power 
that he uses, is borrowed from 

Satan as a sophist 

and his depend- his dupes and based on a f alse- 
dence on a lie. 

hood. A right knowledge of the 
truth would leave him impotent and imprisoned. 
All power in heaven and earth is given to Ghrist, 
and through him to his people- How much does that 
leave for the devil? Nothing, of course. This is 
just his true state. He is a liar, a sophist, a bluffer. 
Jesus said, "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh 
of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it." 
This divine assertion is true. All the influence 
Satan really has is dependent upon a lie. Human 
credence in his sophistries lends him the power to 
act through them, and the improper coalition of ele- 
ments then formed by him, results in discordant 
conditions, disease and death, in all the avenues of 



192 



THE GOSPEL OF 



life. All wrong, misery, disease and death had their 
origin in a Satan-inspired fallacy. Jesus came to 
destroy the works of the devil. He accomplished 
just what he came for ; but we nullify the fruit of 
his mission by our practical unbelief. He says, 
"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
you free," and again, "If thou wouldest believe, 
thou sholdest see the glory of God." Again, he says, 
"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 

If the limitless and perfect nature of Christ's 
redemption was seen, believed and grasped by in- 



once and the triumph of truth would mean the mill- 
ennial reign of righteousness. Is this too much to 
hope for ? Then why do you pray, "Thy kingdom come, 
thy will" be done, on earth as it is done in heaven?" 
Jesus meant to answer that prayer, and it is in the 
realm of possibility, or he never would have com- 
manded its utterance. The "chain" that John, the 
revelator, saw placed by the angel upon Satan, at 
his incarceration in hades, is the chain of the truth 
of Christ. Christ's redemption would re-edenize 
the universal chaos, if faith were but active and 
limitless as it should be. The critics' very objection 
to this fact is the manifest unbelief that, in myriads 
of cases, hinders its accomplishment.' 
Nevertheless Satan is in fact a defeated foe, 



Faith in Christ's 
redemption as 
the devil's defeat. 



telligent obedience today, a 
knock-out blow would be deliver- 
ed to Satan, sin and suffering at 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



193 



whether we believe it or not; he is a chained lion, 
as Bunyan said, while we are in the path of duty. 
Adherance to truth and the principles of righteous- 
The sign of Jonas ness annihilates discord and 



subject to us through thy name." 0, that men 
would, "be not faithless, but believing." There is 
many a dummy in spiritual things today, whose un- 
belief is wholly responsible for his inability to speak 
for God and the truth. Zechariah the father of 
John the Baptist was not by any means the only 
man who has been struck dumb for his unbelief, 
and determination to make the Almighty give bail 
for the truthfulness of his word by a sign. "A 
wicked and an adulterous generation seek for a 
sign," said Jesus, "and there shall no sign be given 
it except the sign of the prophet Jonah; for as 
Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, 
even so must the Son of Man be three days and 
three nights in the heart of the earth." What is 
this "sign of Jonah the prophet?" It is the mani- 
festation of the fact that wilful unbelief and dis- 
obedience to God is universally punished; to use a 
common expression, the Jonahs always "get 
whaled." Look the world over and it will be seen 
that those who are rebelling against known light 
are having a hard time, "kicking against the goads" 
of Providence. 



the prophet and 
its true signifi- 
cance. 



disarms the devil. It is written 
in truth, "Even the devils are 



0E13 



194 



THe GOSPEL OF 



Christ's connecting himself with this principle in 
the text is based on the fact, not generally under- 
stood, that this was true in His death also; as He 
died a sinner's death. Though spotless and holy, 



be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be 
made the righteousness of God in Him." He took 
the sinner's place, and He had to feel the sinner's 
woes, and suffer the sinner's pangs. In death, His 
prayer was unheeded and His dear heart broken by 
the Father's conscious frown, that in life our 
prayers might all be answered and our souls 
cheered by the Father's conscious smile. If we 
would be privileged to enjoy what He deserved to 
enjoy, He must necessarily suffer all that we 
deserved to suffer. It was just an exchange of 
places and conditions with sinners. 

This fact furnishes an answer to the heart- 
breaking cry of the dying Savior on the cross: "My 

Answer the Sav- God > W God > wn Y has ^ Th OU 



reflection on the benevolence and integrity of God 
the Father, to forsake His holy Son. He had 
assumed the sinner's place, and must actually feel 
the divine wrath that sin deserved. In the immedi- 
ate fact of His death, Jesus died as a God-forsaken 





And again, "He made Him to 



ior's question, 
"Why hast thou 
forsaken me?" 



forsaken me?" On any other 
hypothesis it would be a fearful 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



195 



sinner would die. It was this very manifestation of 
the Father's conscious displeasure on sin that 
broke the blessed heart of the world's Redeemer, 
who had assumed responsibility for its redemption. 
The actual death of Ghrist was caused by a literally 
broken heart; this is why all His murderers mar- 
veled that He died so soon. His pure and sensi- 
tive soul could not endure the Father's conscious 
displeasure, and "He yielded up the ghost." 

Sinner, see in this your sins and their awful con- 
sequences. Do you seek for a "sign" in proof of 



mit the pure Son of His love to die a God-forsaken 
sinner's death, and fill a destitute pauper's grave. 
As inspiration declares, "He made His grave with 
the wicked and with the rich in His death," be- 
cause He assumed the responsibility for sin. The 
Father's essential benevolence forbade that He 
permit or find pleasure in the death of Ghrist, on 
any other grounds; yet Isaiah says, "It pleased the 
Lord to bruise him." If we do not renounce our 
sin and unbelief and accept of Ghrist as a substi- 
tute, a similarly certain and Godless death will 
surely be ours, every one. In plain terms, sin, 
unmitigated wickedness, voluntary rebellion 
against God and obedience to Satan is responsible 
for a continuation of all of the diversified miseries 
of earth. 



It meant much 
for Christ to take 
the sinner's 
place. 



the truth of God's Word in 
either its promise or its threat? 
See a God of law forced to per- 



196 THE GOSPEL OF 

When sin and its result is purged from the uni- 
verse of natural and divine activity through an 
intelligent faith in the truth of redemption, the age 
of millennial peace will at once 

The negation of 

deat^ofAath 116 begin. Read the twenty-first 
and twenty-second chapters of 
Revelation. The abolishing of sin is done by the 
arrest and incarceration of Satan and the fruit of 
that act will be the immediate birth of the Sabbatic 
age of peace. This is mere Gause and Effect on a 
broad scale. The Word of God declares that there 
is to be a forfeiture by sin of the power to propa- 
gate itself and a colonization of the element of sin 
in Satan's embodiment, in a suitable sphere, rele- 
gated to an orbit of "outer darkness," where 
wicked spirits have reserved for them "the black- 
ness of darkness (ignorance) forever." This will 
be the negation of negation, and the death of death- 
Though the devil will be incapable of a further 
propagation of evil, yet it is the fixedness and 
depravity of his nature, and that of his associates 
that fixes their location eternally outside the 
bounds of light, love, peace, blessing, and the uni- 
verse of benevolent and untrammeled activity. 

Though few have been spiritually minded enough 
to see it, yet the fact is that the prophecies of 
Christ are the history of real Christianity foretold. 
A true biography of Christianity would fill in all the 
inspired outlines in the biblical life of Jesus from 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 19? 

His birth to His burial, rejection, crucifixion and 
all. 

Let us turn to that marvel of prophecy, the fifty- 
third chaper of Isaiah. Though to the true disciple 
Altogether love- He is "The chiefest among ten 
S^^SSdf ut thousand" and the One "alto- 
gether lovely," yet here we find 
the Ghrist described as the impenitent and the un- 
regenerate see Him, "A root out of a dry ground, 
with no form nor comeliness and no beauty that 
we should desire Him." "He is despised and re- 
jected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief; .... He was despised and we esteem- 
ed Him not." "He was in the world and the world 
was made by Him and the world knew Him not." 
"He came unto His own and His own received Him 
not." This is the reception that true Christianity 
receives from many of its professed popular ad- 
herents. 

He declared, "The hand of him that betrayeth 
me is with me in the dish." Till this day the above 
The judas eie- is as true of Christianity as it 
Sn^fflciaidSm*"" was of Ghrist himself. Its pro- 
fessed disciples and treasurers 
are often its real Judases and for personal gain 
betray their trust- Though with them as with 
Judas it is suicidal to do so, yet the hypocritical 
kiss is imparted, and "the hand that betrayeth," is 
the one that is with Ghrist in the gospel "dish." 



198 



THE GOSPEL OF 



Inspiration gives us another master stroke of 
Christianity foretold in prophecy in the words, 
"They parted my garments among them and upon 
my vesture they did cast lots." Is this not grimly 
officially robed significant? They crucified the 



gambled in the shadow of His cross. They de- 
stroyed the divine life, but covered themselves with 
His clothes. Remember that this was being done 
by the very officials and leading members of His 
own church, who professed to be working, waiting 
and looking for His coming. Who is so blind as to 
fail to see the analogy between this and modern, 
popular Ghristianity? Many of the high priests 
of the professed Ghristian church, while praying, 
"Thy kingdom come" are nevertheless crucifying 
the vital doctrines of conscious regeneration, 
sanctification, divine healing, and the second ad- 
vent, which are the very heart and life of Ghrist- 
ianity, while covering themselves with the official 
garments of Ghristian authority. They destroy the 
vital spark of the gospel and then robe themselves 
in the habiliments of the victim. Prophecy was 
true in foretelling that Ghristianity like its divine 
original was to be "wounded in the house of its 
friends." Ghristian officialdom has always been 
the greatest foe to real Ghristian life and activity. 
It is written further, "He made his grave with the 



in the garments 
of an outraged 
religion. 



Christ, but robed themselves in 
His garments for which they 



CAUSE AND EFFECT 



199 



wicked and with the rich in his death." Here is 
the secret of the foregone facts. Wealth or 
Hoarded wealth wickedness alone can blind 
Suliifeas relisi " the souls of men to that extent 

wickedness. ^ ^ cmcify Q hrist and 

then worship the corpse. They oppose vital Godli- 
ness and then worship 3 $ *A religious form. 
Hoarded wealth or wick' " the very 

vitality of Ghristianity ana worshippers 
but a dead religion. With both Christ and Christ- 
ianity they 'make their grs wicked and 
with the rich in their death/ 1 if on 3 desires to find 
the life and energy of a vital Ghristianity he must 
generally go among the righteous poor to find it. 

The Magdalene was not the only one ever 
moved with a desire to embalm a martyred Lord. 
a dead christian- We have a dead Ghristianity 
w^p^respeJ£ embalmed in worldly respect- 
ability today in many places 
where hoarded wealth and wickedness have made 
such funeral rites necessary, lest the stench of a 
putrid religion should horrify the worshippers in a 
defiled temple. There is many a burdened heart 
and tear-stained face comes to the denominational 
"dead houses," the moral morgues today to seek 
their Lord as Mary did to the sepulchre and like 
her they find them "empty tombs." The angelic 
voice still rings out to all such honest seekers after 
Jesus, and demands, "Why seek ye the living among 



200 



THe GOSPEL OF 



the dead? He is not here ... go quickly and tell 
his disciples that he is risen from the dead ... He 
goeth before you ... Ye shall see him." Halle- 
lujah. "As they went they were cleansed." 

As Mary had only gone a few steps away from 
the empty tomb, in obedience to the angelic corn- 
How Mary met mand, ere she met and was sa- 
i^S^tot^ luted by her risen Lord, so will 

all honest, believing, obedient 
seekers after Christ find him, when they cease to 
seek for the "living" Ghrist among the "dead" cere- 
monies in the "rich men's sepulchres" into which 
many of our popular churches have lately been 
transformed. 

This is not all, as Jesus had a resurrection, 
ascension and an eternal reign, so a resurrected 
The future Christianity will yet shake off 

cnris^an f ity her grave clothes of modern 

church etiquette and fold them 
away in the tomb of time as Christ's burial robe 
was in the sepulchre; while vitalized anew she steps 
from her costly sarcophagus to bless the world 
through a divine ascension and an eternal reign of 
peace inaugurated by a millennial Pentecost. 
Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus. 

Nature and the physical world have always mani- 
festly sympathized with the spiritual condition of 
the people both locally and universally. Mundane 
convulsions, atmospheric perturbances, and astro- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 201 

nomical agitations have always marked great 
changes whether they were progressive or retro- 
gressive. Edenic personal experiences and physical 
conditions were inseparably joined; when the ex- 
The physical periences were abandoned, the 

p^hfwithlpffS: conditions were forfeited. 

ual conditions. Adam ^ must find ^ 

genial and expressive surroundings. The flaming 
lusts of the Sodomites called for flaming vengeance. 
The spiritual death and degradation in Noah's day 
called for physical death and judgment. The birth 
of Christ was heralded by a bright, strange star, a 
morning star of hope. The rejection of Ghrist 
brought on the destruction of Jerusalem. The 
crucifixion of Jesus was marked by earthquake and 
darkness in the day time. The great apostacy of 
the last days of this age, Ghrist and the apostles 
declare will be marked by the mightiest convulsions 
and the most far-reaching and dreadful calamities 
of all kinds. Flood, flame, war, pestilence, famine, 
earthquake, cyclone and a universal epidemic of 
corporeal disasters will mark this spiritual decay. 

The absence of true revival power in the 
churches today has lifted the restraining influence 
of the fear of God from the 

The cause of the 

?ic c coracience ub " near ^s of men and consequently 
licensed the decay of the public 
conscience. The general corruption that has 
followed is calling for corrective afflictions to the 



202 THE GOSPEL OF 

intent that the hearts of men be turned back to 
God from the myths of learning and lucre they have 
been pursuing. We must not be> blinded by the 
glare of a popular though shallow and heartless 
Ghristianity. 



CHAPTER XII. 



To illustrate the principle of Gause and Effect 
let us examine that mysterious, and almost omnipo- 
tent energy which fills all earth and air, called 
electricity which has been in some sense known to 
men for hundreds of years. Though our fathers 
looked on it as merely an interesting or wonderful 
phenomenon, incapable of any practical results, yet 
a heartier research into its nature and laws and an 
effort to apply the same to every day business, has 
wrought revolutions in all branches of life. Hun- 
dreds of years passed away in useless ignorance 
because we did not know enough 

A profitable and 

pleasing niustra- to harmonize our needs with its 

tion of the gospel. 

fixed principles and thus secure 
its certain benefits. Our ignorance did not anihi- 
late electricity, it merely left us void of its bene- 
ficial results. But today the harnessed lightning 
illuminates our buildings and streets, hauls our 
freight and passengers over the country, carries 
our thoughts almost instantly to our friends across 
the sea, and our very voices to our acquaintances 
scores and even hundreds of miles away. It em- 
powers a fan to cool us in the summer and it heats 



204 THE GOSPEL OF 

a coil to warm us in the winter. It runs our print- 
ing presses, mills and factories and in untold ways 
it lightens our labor and consequently lengthens 
our lives. 

There is a similar but mightier power in the 
gospel of Jesus that has been tested and proven, 
^ ■ a „ but now for a long time it has 

A profitable Illus- 
tration con- lain latent waiting for some one 

to again arise and intelligently 
and practically apply its living, unchanged princi- 
ples. The ignorance, unbelief, or neglect of men 
have not annihilated its power, but simply left them- 
selves void of its mercies and benedictions. The 
gospel declaration is, "If we believe not, yet He 
abideth faithful; He cannot deny himself." A 
more radical research into its immutable princi- 
ples, a more thorough knowledge of its laws and 
conditions and a truer and wiser harmonization 
with and application of the same to our every day 
life and business will work greater revolutions than 
electricity has wrought. The love-life of Jesus, as 
the power of the gospel is the greatest of all dynamics. 
It is written, "God is love;" then love is the life of 
God and as God is omnipotent, love is omnipotent of 
necessity. "Love never faileth." Men "do," "do," 
"do" a lot of work that passes for nothing, because in 
theirmere human efforts and mere creature activities 
they do not "tarry" before God until they be 
"endued with power from on high." 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 205 

The unintelligent way in which the gospel has 
been preached, and not the gospel itself, is the 
cause of its present limited fruitfulness. A hope- 
The helplessness lessness has been born through 
?ts h ca p use anT*' failure in gospel work lately 
that will be hard to overcome in 
the future. If hope can be inspired, as well as 
future effort intelligently directed by this gospel of 
Gause and Effect, the writer will be well paid for 
his toil. That there is any ground for hopelessness 
or possibility of failure to intelligent, believing, 
self-sacrificing effort is emphatically untrue. If 
the same loose unintelligent methods were applied 
by persons as unqualified to act, in the electric 
realm as is being done in the gospel world, the re- 
sult would be even more futile and fatal. Even 
this might not be an unmitigated malediction, as the 
fatality might correct the folly. Nor is this mys- 
terious electric element in its subtle and powerful 
operations as an illustration and handmaid of the 
gospel very far removed from the very heart of the 
same. Its mystery, power, universality, invisibility, 
adherence to law, affinity for certain elements, 
responsiveness to intelligent desire, fatality to 
ignorant irreverence and general disposition and 
ability to bless the sons of men, make it an inter- 
esting, ethereal illustration of the true gospel. 
Like the gospel, its power to bless is dependent 
upon a medium entirely insulated or isolated from 



206 THE GOSPEL OF 

the earth, as a conductor of the invisible currents 
of vital energy. 

Without this element of perfect isolation there 
can be no electrical wonders wrought and the ex- 
tent of the insulation is the limit of electrical 
The principle of accomplishment. A break in the 
tSewcSS 1 mus- m insulating element is fatal in the 
field of electricity and equally 
so in the gospel realm. The principle of Gause and 
Effect has long pointed to the wickedness and even 
the worldliness of professed Christians and then at 
such passages of Scripture as the following, and 
declared that the chasm between the command and 
the obedience was the cause of the churches' 
defeat. "Gome out from among them (the world- 
lings) and be ye separate and touch not the un- 
clean thing and I will receive you and be a father 
unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters, 
saith the Lord Almighty." "If any man love the 
world the love of the Father is not in him;" and 
"If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not 
hear me." Let any one who desires to see the 
possible reason of the above exacting scriptural 
requirements illustrated by natural things, seat 
himself in an insulated chair and hold the poles 
of an appropriate battery. He becomes the re- 
cipient of electric energy up to the fatal point if he 
wills, as in the Sing Sing prison chair. But mildly 
for experiment, he feels a burning electric rush all 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 207 

through him, his hair becomes like wires, he seems 
to feel an enlargement of his flesh and you can draw 
fire from his very body by touching him. All these 
wonderful phenomena largely disappear when he 
steps out of the insulated chair even though he still 
holds the pole of the battery and still receives the 
vital current. The reason is that the earth becomes 
a negative influence and his electric vitality is 
squandered. Virtue has gone out of him as Jesus 
said when the woman touched him. 

This is the reason that some apparently good 
and honest, but worldly workers, in the gospel 
The cause of realm are fruitless and barren. 
ftve^aSd 8 effort There is a manifest breach in 
ot preachers. their insulation from the im- 
purity of the world in its spirit or practice. The 
divine love-life of Jesus as the heavenly vital 
current, is leaking out through their conscious or 
unconscious contact with worldly things. Jesus 
said, "How can ye believe that receive honor of 
men and not the honor that cometh from God 
only?" 

It does not take superhuman effort to press an 

electric button, throw a steam lever or open a 

The race is not water faucet and produce 

tSe'batue'to the powerful results. These re- 
strong. gu j ts - n true causes were 

there before the actor appeared and waiting only 
to be given the opportunity to manifest themselves. 



208 THE GOSPEL OF 

Thus with the supernatural power of the gospel 
when intelligently applied by simple, obedient 
faith. Peter said at the healing of the lame man 
at the beautiful gate of the temple, "Ye men of 
Israel, why marvel ye at this, or why look ye so 
earnestly on us, as though by our own power or 
holiness we had made this man to walk? The God 
of our fathers hath glorified His Son Jesus .... 
and through faith in His name hath made this man 
strong whom ye see and know; yea, the faith 
which is by Him hath given him this perfect 
soundness in the presence of you all." We plead 
for a re-enthroning of that apostolic, simple, but 
intelligent faith as the wisdom and power of God, 
applicable and mighty as ever. 

The coronation of this truth alone will rescue 
Christianity from being killed by a false kindness 
The church and an <* wounded to death in the 
both W ?a\iiSS; e for house of its friends. A just 

another lather. recognition and an intelligent 

presentation of this truth of Cause and Effect will 
bring about a religious revolution where everybody 
is nearly ready to admit that revolution is neces- 
sary. We need a religious revolution almost 
universally. Even the churches of the reformation 
need reforming themselves. Both the Lord's and 
the people's needs are calling for another Luther, 
Knox or Wesley to bring order out of confusion and 
edenize the religious chaos of today by protesting 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 209 

against the protestantism of the times. Though 
there is much bright, interesting and helpful truth 
presented from the modern pulpit and press, yet 
there is little that is revolutionary and reconstruc- 
tionary and this fact begets a retroactionary 
revival, a hopelessness that is paralyzing. The 
people feel that more of the same pulpit presenta- 
tions that produced this present religious stagna- 
tion can never bring about a reformation of the 
same. The conditions that caused the disease 
must at least be changed in their application, to 
effect a cure. The manifest disposition to give us 
more of the same element that has largely pro- 
duced or at least permitted this baneful state of 
affairs in religion is very irrational. 

A due recognition of this element of law and 
order, of Gause and Effect as a revolutionary ele- 
An intelligent ment is the hope of the hour. 
otu°se n and n Effect When the elements of accident 

is our only hope. , . , , , 

and uncertainty are thrown 
out of the realm of Christianity there will not be 
much left but the name, in some places; but the 
divinity that remains will be so accessible to in- 
telligent, believing discipleship, that glorious and 
limitless results will be produced through a just 
recognition of the ever acting principles of remun- 
eration or retribution. 
In that striking parable of the great supper, 

which sets forth the whole Christian age, this very 
C E 14 



210 



THe GOSPEL OF 



truth of a latent and unused energy or power of 
the gospel is taught. God in Ghrist Jesus is the 
man of whom the Savior there said, he made a 
great supper and bade many. That supper was 
the real blessings of the true gospel. It is a feast 

Unbelief makes to the souls and * blessing to 



door hand out for the tramping pilgrims to piece 
out the carnal joys of the world, but it is a true 
spiritual and mental feast. In contradistinction to a 
dinner or breakfast it is peculiarly a supper. 
These other meals imply that parts of the day 
are still to come, but the supper is the last meal of 
the day; it implies the end of the day is near and 
it must be eaten, or the long, dark night passed in 
hunger. There is no post mortem salvation in this 
parable, it implies that to those who reject gospel 
mercy there remains nothing, but "the blackness of 
darkness forever." When in contradistinction to 
the patriarchal, or Abrahamic breakfast and the 
Mosaic or Judaic dinner, this pentecostal or Chris- 
tian supper was prepared, Ghrist commissioned his 
disciples to go into all nations and preach the 
kingdom of God, and he bestowed miraculous pow- 
ers upon them as proofs of their divine authority, 
which proofs were to last as long as the commis- 
sion. 

These miraculous proofs are demanded by the 



the gospel supper 
a fast rather than 
a feast. 



the minds and bodies of men. 
It is not a mere lunch or back 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 211 

world even yet. The promise is not rescinded any- 
where in scripture. Unbelief alone has banished 
them from the church. Reader, is your unbelief 
aii are as biest helping to do so? We are told 
sid??iSg bl tle 0 way to "earnestly contend for the 
they live. w j 1 j c j 1 was once delivered 

to the saints," as much as to imply that it is lacking 
among us today. This parable says to all, "Gome, 
for all things are now ready/' This is true from 
the divine side, all is done that can be done till men 
repent and believe. But as Jesus said, "They 
all with one consent began to make excuse." 
Their fields, flocks and families they declared, hin- 
dered them and they begged to be "excused." 
Men's fields, flocks and families will be made a 
blessing to them if they believe and obey Him fully. 
It is only the disobedient who are ever hindered, or 
cursed by either or all of them. The Lord is a very 
accommodating being and he will "excuse," any one 
from the gospel feast who insists he must be "ex- 
cused." But to those thus excused there is no 
heaven of eternal bliss. 

To ignore the cross is to lose the crown as sure 
as to neglect to plant is to miss a harvest. The 

There Is a power lord 0 * tne feas t Said that those 

tfrff/fiSYS. 1 en " should "never taste of his sup- 
played * per" who made more of their 

fields, flocks and families than of him. God must 
be loved and served above our father, mother, wife 



212 THE GOSPEL OF 

or child, or, it is written we are "not worthy" of 
him. It is significant that they "all with one con- 
sent began to make excuse." Till this day that is 
true and men do not really come into this gospel 
banqueting house where God's banner over them is 
love. They are blinded and biassed by selfish mo- 
tives largely, and not truly devoted to God. Their 
family and commercial interests hinder their spir- 
ituality. As Ghrist said, The cares of this life and 
the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word that it 
bringeth forth no fruit to perfection. Luke 8:14. 

Oh for a mightier, a limitless consecration to God 
and a faith as far-reaching and firm as the truths 
The church's on which it rests. This alone 
fl n ectionon a g r o e s- will make gloriously applicable 
pel truth. ^ e j a t. en ^ pentecostal energy of 

the gospel of Ghrist. The world is waiting for an 
awakened church membership to arise and wipe 
the apparent reflection from the inspired truth of 
God by making a practical and limitless display of the 
pentecostal power of the gospel. Amen. This 
limiting the power of God and the atonement of 
Jesus is the most virulent form of unbelief, because 
it is a traitorous element within the Christian's 
camp, a wolf in the Lord's sheep fold. 

That Ghrist's sacrificial death and resurrection 
were essential in the very nature of things to man's 
redemption is very plain to deeply spiritual and 
thoughtful persons. Let me illustrate the case. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 215 

Mr. A. has a five thousand dollar mortgage on Mr. 
B.'s entire herd of one hundred head of horses and 
their offspring. But since Mr. A. got his mortgage, 
Another profit- a f riend of Mr - B - has presented 
?&nof\?e S - tra " him with another very beauti- 

demption. f ^ ^ ^ beQn 

ing that all B- 's horses really belonged to him, in a 
sense, and soon would be entirely so. He is jeal- 
ous and almost insanely anxious to have that par- 
ticular horse included ^ the mortgage. Mr. B. 
refuses under any circumstances to mortgage the 
same. Mr. A. sees Mr. B. driving around with this 
beautiful creature and his insane lust for gain and 
his desire to humble or rob poor Mr. B. drives him 
to go by force and take that horse from him. 

Mr. B. is poor while Mr. A. is rich, but an honest 
judiciary settles a damage fine of five thousand 
Another profit- dollars and costs on Mr A. for 
of rldeShfn 1011 his crime, besides giving back 

continued. ^ ^ R ^ ^ 

A. had taken. This damage sum that goes to Mr. 

B. is just equal to the face of Mr. A.'s mortgage 
and pays the same in full. Thus Mr. B. gets back 
the horse of which he was robbed by Mr. A. and he 
gets the entire mortgage lifted from all his other 
horses as a conseqence of the court's decision, and 
A. pays all the bills. 

This was just what was done in the redemption 
of Jesus. At the Adamio fall the arch-enemy, 



214 THE GOSPEL OF 

through the medium of man's sin, secured a sort of 
mortgage on the whole human family. At death, 
Jesus exercised the mortgaged commodity was 
Sunfa?i°en e be- of forfeited for non-payment of 
ing * claims. It is evident that no 

mere human being could redeem the race, for the 
mortgage of sin covered them all. Nothing that 
they themselves could do would be recognized. 
But since the fall, Jesus came as the Son of God a 
creature of another line, born into the human fam- 
ily, free from the taint of sin, uncovered by its 
cursed mortgage. The arch-enemy of the human 
race saw Jesus on the hills and vales of old Judea, 
exercising all the prerogatives of an unf alien 
human being, an original human son of God un- 
tainted by sin. This stirred the jealousy of this 
anarchist of the pit and he tried in every way to 
get a mortgage on Jesus by tempting Him to sin. 

Gomfort, pleasure, wealth, honor, — all was lav- 
ishly offered but as fully refused. Thank heaven! 

Jesus knew that the true way 

To receive out of . ^ 

season is to lose to possess these things eternally 

without reason. 

was to deny himself awhile and 
await God's time of giving them to Him. Things 
received out of season are often a curse without 
reason. Then after Christ preached that awful 
sermon on false religion, as recorded in the 23d 
chapter of Matthew's gospel, in which the robe of 
hypocrisy was torn from the devil's religious pre- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 215 

tensions as displayed in the lives of the Pharisees 
bis satanic wrath knew no bounds. He determined 
that Ghrist should die at any cost. This is just 
what Jesus desired. He said, "For this cause 
same I into the world." 

He constantly testified, "The Son of Man must 
lie," "Must be lifted up." It is significant that 
me officials who three times from different per- 
fceltifled S to S ms sons, all in official connection 

Sinlessness. ^ Q hrist > s cruc ifixi on> on t he 

morning of the tragedy, God wrung the confession 
from Satan's representatives, that Ghrist was 
guiltless. Pilate said, "I find no fault in Him." 
Pilate's wife called Him a "just man." The cen- 
turian and his minions that drove the nails said, 
"Truly, this was the Son of God." Now, as it is 
acknowledged in hell, earth and heaven, that 
death is the proof, punishment and fruit of sin and 
it never was God's original intention for any 
creature that He had made to feel death's sting, it 
is seen that Jesus had a right to live forever and 
was wrongfully put to death. "By one man's 
transgression came sin into the world and death by 
sin, so that death passed upon all, for all have 
sinned." Jesus was sinless and He would conse- 
quently have been living yet, had He not been 
crucified; but it was needful for us that He go 
away. Though what would ordinarily be mortal 
wounds were inflicted upon Him, yet He had to 



216 THE GOSPEL OF 

"yield up the ghost." He had said, "No man 
taketh my life from me. I have power to lay it 
down and I have power to take it up again." 

Though this be true, it does not clear Satan or 
his minions, as they proved their animus and guilt 
^ ■:■ , by the effort. When three 

The philosophy 

^redemption days in the tomb had proven 
the certainty of death, Jesus 
came forth, victorious over sin, death and hell. 
At the throne of the universe the outrage was 
settled in Christ's favor, after a fifty days' suit. 
The damage claim, awarded to God the Father, 
was a sum equaling the face of Satan's mortgage 
on the race, besides the Son who had been torn 
from Him. The race was declared free, redeemed. 
The debt was legally and honorably paid. The mort- 
gage was liquidated and Satan entirely defeated 
at his own game. The Holy Spirit was poured out 
freely and offered to all who would come to Jesus 
for it 

This is Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" on a 
large and realscale,marriage and all ; except that the in- 
The "Merchant fernal Shylock took his pound of 
farg| n and reai a flesh from the divine Antonio. 

This is the plain philosophy of re- 
demption. The gospel account of the God-man and 
His redemptive sacrifice is philosphically plain and in 
considering the condition of things, it was a scien- 
tific necessity. Ghrist, the God-man then, is the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 21? 

hope of the race, the central figure of history, the 
only avenue of hope and the open door to heaven. 
He has the moral fitness and right to do business 
at the throne of heaven and on the plains of earth. 
He can put His hands on us and on the throne of 
God at the same time and make a union of divinity 
and humanity eternally. 

The redeemed sons of men may choose to remain 
in Satan's service if they will. That is their terri- 
unbeiief the ble prerogative but it is not ob- 

actfvity 1 and ln " ligatory in any sense upon them ; 
bondage. ^ Q ^ Q frQQft southern slaves 

who were found living in slavery in the mountains 
of Georgia years after the Civil war, because they 
believed the lies of their masters. Unbelief in the 
proclamation of emancipation and the tragedy of 
the Givil war kept them in slavery while others 
were saved by faith. Unbelief in the tragedy of 
Calvary and the divine proclamation of liberty to 
penitent sinners is a crime against one's self. 

God is necessarily a being of moral perfection 
and this very fact forces Him to demand moral 
perfection on the part of His 

Purity the essen- ... 

«ai basis of union intelligent worshippers as the 
basis of union and communion 
with himseif. Moral perfection is both His being 
and business, His essence and end, and nothing 
short of moral perfection then, can in His mind, 
from the very nature of things be a suitable plane 



218 THE GOSPEL OF 

of attainment for His children. Thus the com- 
mand, "Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am 
holy" is the essential requirement of God, and the 
inspired statements, "Holiness becometh thy house 
Oh Lord forever," and "Holiness, without which no 
man shall see the Lord," are the natural sequences 
to the very nature of a being of God's superlative 
perfections. The true and intelligent Ghristianis 
the man who thinks, desires, plans and acts as 
nearly as possible as God would do under the same 
circumstances. He who limits or denies the possi- 
bility of personal holiness or sanctity to men, limits 
or denies the possibility of union or communion 
with God, in the same degree, as with impurity 
of intention or voluntary imperfection God's very 
nature prohibits us communion or pleasure- 
Men can fully renounce sin, straighten up the 
past as far as lies in their power, begin a life of 
righteousness and in answer to 

Glorious and lim- 
itless possibiii- the prayer of faith God will for- 
ties for men. J 

give His prodigal sons and give 
them a conscious, regenerating blessing and grace 
enabling them to live righteously. A universal 
pean of praise should forever ascend to the skies 
for the glad tidings of the gospel that man is 
identified as a son of God and an heir of heaven. 
"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent 
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the 
law, to redeem them that were under the law, that 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 219 

we might receive the adoption of sons." "He 
made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that 
we might be made the righteousness of God in 
him." Salvation by faith brings a major strain of 
victory into the minor tune of our lives. 

Jesus exchanged places and deserts with the lost 
race, and received the curse which we deserved, 
that we might receive the bless- 

Jesus took our 

deserts that we m g which he deserved. He be- 

mlght take tils. ° 

came in body the Son of man, 
that we might become in spirit the sons of God. 
He came down to this lost world, that we might be 
privileged to go up to that blest world of light and 
love. He bore the cross that we might wear the 
crown. He sweat blood that our faces might shine 
in glory. He died that we might live. 0, adorable 
Jesus! 0, blessed Redeemer! Thou glorious hope 
of a ruined race! We will surely renounce our sins 
and let thee count us in among the trophies of thy 
bloody sweat, and painful, shameful, sacrificial 
death. 

Man, the invisible, the mysterious, the unknown, 
is identified as a son of the equally mysterious and 
■ aM , invisible God. "An heir of God 

Man identified as 

a son of God and and a joint-heir with Jesus 

an heir of heaven. " 

Ghrist, to an inheritance incor- 
ruptible, and undefined and that fadeth not away." 
This heavenly house-builder, this divine carpenter, 
who has been constructing mansions in glory for 



220 



THE GOSPEL OF 



His friends for eighteen hundred years, is the hope 
of the race. He only has the key to all the com- 
binations of earth. He has the world unit of 
measure, weight and description. He has the 
solution to all its knotty problems and the elucida- 
tion of all its mysteries. He has the key to the 
old earth's true tool chest, laboratory and instru- 
ment room. The second coming of the Savior and 
the establishing of the millennial age of peace is 
not only the desire of all good beings, but the hope 
of the world at large. 

It is to be noticed that no amount of unbelief on 
the part of humanity can nullify the fact of re- 



men. This Gibraltar of truth stands in defiance of 
universal bombardment, unaltered and unalterable. 
Therefore, it is written, "Though we believe not, 
yet he abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself." 

This fact of redemption is not affected by our feel- 
ings, yet our feelings are affected by the fact. 
Redemption is a certainty, whether we believe it 
or not; but if we really do believe it, our feelings 
will be wonderfully influenced by that fact. The 
fact of a mortgage being paid by a friend would not 
be changed by the man's unbelief or lack of emo- 
tion; nor would his emotions be stirred in the least 



The fact of re- 
demption is un- 
affected by our 
faith or un- 



belief. 



demption. That legal transac- 
tion stands on its own merits 
independent of the faith or un- 
belief, actions or emotions of 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



221 



so long as he remained in unbelief of that fact. 
But the moment he saw and believed the truth, his 
emotions would be influenced 

This fact is unaf- 

fectedbyourfeei- according to his faith. As 

ings, but our feel- 53 

by s tke tactf ected we j ust related > some southern 
freedmen lived in slavery for 
years after the Givil War, because they believed the 
lies of their old masters who told them they were 
not free. Unbelief kept them in bondage, faith 
would have set them free, by inspiring suitable 
action on their part. They were walled in by a 
shadow, incarcerated by a chalk mark on the 
ground, so to speak. They were imprisoned by a 
notion, and faith in the facts of the blood-sealed 
proclamation of emancipation alone could inspire 
saving action. This is redemption's story in a 
nutshell. 

Faith in the divine proclamation for the sinner, 
inspires saving action on his part, in penitence and 
_ righteousness of life. Unbe- 

Falth is an essen- 
tial doctrine even hef of the truth and heeding 
in politics. & 

the lying sophistry of the satanic 
slave-driver enchains the soul in helpless, despair- 
ing inactivity. "Only believe and thou shalt see 
the glory of God." For faith implies and inspires 
penitence, purity, restitution. Believe and live, or 
doubt and die is now seen to be a social and politi- 
cal truth, as fully as it was formerly seen to be a 
scientific and theological truth- "All things are 
possible to him that believeth." 



222 The gospel o? 

The redemption of Jesus is a bundle of limitless 
possibilities to the race; but those possibilities 
must be utilized, or they are as 

less possibilities. 



Redemption is a 

f^^f^ii" fruitless as seed unplanted 



There is a vast difference be- 
tween being redeemed and released from sin. All 
men are unconditionally redeemed from sin. That 
was God's work; all may be conditionally released 
from its power. Repentance, faith and obedience 
are the conditions of the latter, which is man's 
work. The sacrifice of Jesus was the purchase 
price of the former, which stands unconditionally 
for all. Redemption is as a gold or diamond mine» 
worthless, while unworked, but which rewards the 
believing actor 'according to his works." 

If a gold mine were bestowed upon the reader as 
a gift by a friend, the deed to the same would be 
useless as long as he disbe- 
diseour^S^g* lieved in the mine's paying 
?ngon& to in- r " qualities, for his unbelief would 
be a brake on the machine, a 
fire extinguisher on the furnace of his enterprise. 
His lack of faith would be a neutralizing, discour- 
aging quality inspiring only to inactivity. On the 
other hand faith in the existence of the mine and 
its treasures would become a blessing quality, 
through the fact that it inspired action by its offer 
of reward. His faith would call forth effort and 
his effort would be rewarded by the results of the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 225 

mine's output. Here is the harmonization of the 
principle of being "saved by faith" and "rewarded 
according to our works." It is philosophically 
plain. 

Reward or punishment is no accident or chance, 
it is a geometrical accuracy, a mathematical cer- 
Rewardorpun- tainty which is appalling. In- 
mSSImaticai telligent faith is the very an- 
certainty. tipodes of that inactive, super- 

stitious, presumption that declares, "Somehow I'll 
be blessed, in some mysterious, unknown way 
because I believe." 

A German prince is said to have made the little 
girls of his capital city each a Christmas present of 
The treasures of a S^nt ball of yarn with trinkets 
ll^enin 1 ?™ 1 and playthings wound up in it. 

the life. They were tQ get desired 

trinkets only as they knit up the yarn into some 
useful articles. Their actions were to be doubly 
rewarded by their getting the articles which they 
made from the yarn and also by the trinkets which 
rolled out every little while as they worked. Thus 
the Prince of Life has given us redemption. We 
must knit its thread into the warp and woof of an 
entire righteous life to be benefited; and then the 
benefit becomes several fold. We see the good 
works accomplished which we undertake, we 
receive the development of our natures in recti- 
tude, we get better acquainted with God our 



224 



THe GOSPEL OF 



Savior, besides the present blessing and the hope of 
eternal reward. "The just shall live by faith." 

Using the horticultural illustration of grafting the 
wild olive branches into the tame olive tree or the 
Sin as a powerful earthly branches into the 
tio r rf a^owSrSS heavenly vine, Jesus denomi- 



heavenly graft into the human life. I was going to 
say it was a legitimate but powerful parasite that 
eventually transforms the original body to its own 
likeness, but it is more than this. Sin, rather is a 
powerful parasite that has transformed the human 
nature into its own image, and Christianity is a 
gratuitous and divine infusion of a superabundance 
of the original, uncorrupted life essence acting as a 
powerful purge. This divine purging power goes 
on through knowledge and development, called 
"growth in grace" till the wild, human seedling, 
purified, ennobled and exalted produces its pristine 
fruits of purity and righteousness. 

The practical zoologist, the horticulturist and the 
botanist look over their lists of hybrids, crosses, 
The testimony of successful grafts and mixed 



ian claim. Every sweet, luscious, navel orange, 
the grafted fruit of a lemon stock, is an illustration 
and proof of the scientific possibility of the claims 
of Christianity, that the fruits of the heavenly 



purge. 



nates Christianity as a 



zoology, horti- 
culture and 
botany. 



plants and declare they all ad- 
mit the validity of this Christ- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 225 

Spirit can be borne in the human life, through the 
engrafting of the divine nature. It is written, "We 
are made partakers of the divine nature," through 
faith in those "exceeding great and precious prom- 
ises." 

To illustrate: The caterpillar seems to grow 
discontented and nauseated with his low, limited 
life. He gets an inkling of the fact that there is 
within his reach the possibility of "a higher life." 
He seems to make the magnanimous resolve, the 
heroic decision of dying to live, rather than living 
to die. He gathers the materials and tools to- 
gether with which to make a coffin for himself. 
a anal farewell Wi th an intrepidity born of faith 
graded a eondi- in the doctrine of animal regen- 
eration and resurrection, he 
proceeds to make his own sarcophagus. When his 
cocoon is almost finished he seems to take a last 
farewell of his immediate friends and caterpillar ac- 
quaintances and deliberately seals up his chrysalis 
coffin and "screws down the lid." Hours, days 
elapse in nameless sensations and sufferings 
possibly, till the poor creature feels his life depart- 
ing. 

In the act of apparent death a new life seems to 

be imparted, with all its new sensations, aspirations, 

hopes, fears, appetites and possibilities. He cuts 

his way out of his coffin and his friends are less 

surprised than himself at the transformation that 
OE15 



226 THE GOSPEL OF 

has been wrought. Instead of the low, helpless, 
sluggish caterpillar he appears a beautiful butterfly, 
a living, variegated flower. His instincts, appetites 
a living, varie- ' anc ^ mode of locomotion are as 
8?X2?n ft and exalted above his former facul- 
taugllt * ties as is his appearance. This 

is caterpillar regeneration or insect resurrection. 

In renouncing sin and wicked companions for a 
life of religious purity and in physical death as the 
entrance upon the glorified state, just such experi- 
ences are seen. Every butterfly is a gospel ser- 
mon, an insect's oath to the scientific feasibility of 
present, spiritual regeneration and future, physical 
resurrection. Like the caterpillar, our present 
life is but a larva form of a better life beyond, which 
we can make or mar at will. 

The following from Hans G. Anderson is to the 
point here: — "Once there was a beautiful pond in 
the centre of a wood. Trees 

An instructive 

lesson by an in- and flowers were growing about 

sect. 

it, birds sang and insects 
hummed above it. Under the water too, there was 
a little world of beings. Fishes and little creatures 
that live in water filled it full of busy life. Among 
them was the grub of a dragon-fly, with a large 
family of brothers and sisters. A dragon-fly is 
what the children call a darning-needle, that beau- 
tiful, swift creature with a long, glittering, blue and 
green body and brilliant, gauzy wings. Now, before 



CAUSE, AND EFFECT. 227 

he became a dragon-fly, darting through the air and 
flashing back the sunshine, he was a dark, scaly 
grub and lived down in the forest pond. He and 
his family were born there and knew no other 
world. They spent their time roving in and out 
among the plants at the bottom of the water in 
search of food. But one day this grub began to 
talk among his mates about the frog. 'Every little 
while/ said he, 'the frog goes to the side of the 
water and disappears. What becomes of him when 
he leaves this world? What can there be beyond?' 
'You idle fellow,' replied another grub, 'attend to 
the world you are in, and leave the beyond to those 
that are there!" 

"So said all his relations, and the curious grub 
tried to forget all his questionings. But he could 
An instructive not do it; so one day when he 
twiela^ruband heard a heavy splash in the 
water and saw a great yellow 
frog swim down to the bottom, he screwed up his 
courage to ask the frog himself. 'Honored frog,' 
said he, approaching that dignified . personage as 
meekly as possible, 'permit me to inquire what 
there is beyond the world?' 'What world do you 
mean?' said the frog, rolling his goggle eyes. 'This 
world, of course; our world/ answered the grub- 
'This pond, you mean/ remarked the frog with a 
sneer. 'I mean the place we live in; I call it the 
world/ cried the grub with spirit. 'Do you, in- 



228 THe GOSPEL OF 

deed!" rejoined the frog. 'Then what is the place 
you don't live in, the beyond the world, eh?' 

"'That is just what I want you to tell me,' replied 
the grub briskly. 'Well, then/ said froggy, 'it is 
dry land/ 'Gan one swim about there?' asked the 

Hard to de- g rub - <Dr y land is not Water, 

tS r e?eat^r 0 0 f M little fellow/ chuckled the frog; 

'that is just what it is not.' 

'But tell me what it is,' persisted the grub. 
'Well then, you troublesome creature/ cried the 
frog, 'dry land is something like the bottom of this 
pond, only it is not wet, because there is no water/ 

'Really/ said the grub, 'if there is no water, what 

is there then?' 'They call it air/ replied the frog. 

'It is the nearest approach to nothing/ Finding 

personal experi- that he could not make the 

lut e it S iSa S cSt!jr grub understand, the good- 
commodity. natured frQg offered tQ take 

him on his back up to the dry land, where the grub 
might see for himself. The grub was delighted. 
He dropped himself down upon the frog's back 
and clung closely to him while he swam up to the 
rushes at the water's edge. But the moment he 
emerged into the air, the grub fell reeling back 
into the water, panting and struggling for life. 
'Horrible!' cried he, as soon as he had rallied a 
little; 'there is nothing but death beyond this 
world. The frog deceived me. He cannot go 
there at any rate!' 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 229 

'Then the grub told his story to his friends and 
they talked a great deal about the mystery, but 
could arrive at no explanation. That evening the 
yellow frog appeared again at the bottom of the 
pond. 'You here!' cried the startled grub. 'You 
never left this world at all, I suppose.' 'Clumsy 
creature,' replied the frog, 'why 

It is possible to * , 

live fn either of did you not cling to my back? 

two spheres. J 

When I landed on the grass you 
were gone.' The grub related his death-like 
struggle and added, 'Since there is nothing but 
death beyond this world, all your stories about go- 
ing there must be false.' 

"'I forgive your offensive remarks,' said the frog 
gravely, 'because I have learned today the reason 
a tremendous of y° ur tiresome curiosity. As 
£ a 5S°SSS on I was hopping about in the 

grass on the edge of the pond, I 
saw one of your race slowly climbing up the stalk 
of a reed. Suddenly there appeared a rent in his 
scaly coat and after many struggles there came 
out of it one of those radiant dragon-flies that float 
in the air I told you of. He lifted his wings out of 
the carcass he was leaving, and when they had 
dried in the sunshine he flew glittering av/ay. I 
conclude that you grubs will do the same thing by 
and by.' The grub listened with astonishment and 
distrust and swam off to tell his friends. They 
decided it was impossible nonsense, and the grub 



250 THE GOSPEL OF 

said he would think no more about it. He hurried 
restlessly about in the water, hunting for prey and 
trying to forget. But not long afterward he began 
to be sick, and a feeling he could not resist impelled 
him to go upward. He called to his relations and 
said: 

"'I must leave you, I know not why. If the 
frog's story of another world is true, I solemnly 
promise to return and tell you.' 

Insect yearnings 

for a higher life His friends accompanied him to 

rewarded. r 

the water's edge, where he 
vanished from their sight, for their eyes were fitted 
to see only in water. All day they watched and 
waited for his return, but he came no more. One 
of his brothers soon felt the same irresistible im- 
pulse upward and he also promised the sorrowing 
family that, if he should indeed be changed into 
that glorious creature of which they had heard, he 
would return and tell them. 'But,' said one, 'per- 
haps you might not be able to come back.' 'A 
creature so exalted could certainly do anything,' 
replied the departing grub. But he also came not 
again. 'He has forgotten us,' said one. 'He is 
dead,' said another, 'there is no other world.' 

"And now a third brother felt the same inward 
necessity driving him upward. He bade his friends 
farewell, saying, 'I dare not promise to return. If 
possible, I will; but do not fear in me an altered or 
a forgetful heart. If that world exists, we may not 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 231 

understand its nature.' His companions lingered 
near the spot where he disappeared, but there was 
neither sound nor sign of his return. Only the 
dreary sense of bereavement 

TVhat 'W© call 

death, but a reminded them that he had 

change of condi- 
tions and not ex- once lived. Some feared the 
tlnction of life. 

future, some disbelieved, some 
hoped and looked forward still. Ah, if the poor 
things could only have seen into the pure air above 
their watery world, they would have known that 
no loss was awaiting them in the changes that 
were to come, if only they obediently fulfilled the 
call that was within them. Their friends who had 
answered the call and gone before them, were 
supremely happy, but into the world of waters 

where they had once lived they 

There is a higher 

life within the could nevermore enter, neither 

reach of all who 

SoSL tlie condi " did they desire to. The least 
touch upon its surface as the 
dragon-fly skimmed over it with the purpose of 
descending to his friends, brought on a deadly 
shock, such as he had felt when as a water grub 
he had tried to come upward into the air. His 
wings instantly bore him back. And thus, divided 
yet near, parted yet united by love, he often hover- 
ed about the barrier that separated him from his 
early companions, watching till they too should 
come forth into the better life. 

"Sweet it was to each new-comer to find him- 



232 



THE GOSPEL OP 



self not alone in his joyous existence, but welcomed 
into it by those who had gone before. Sweet also to 
know that, even while they were in their ignorant 
life below, there was something 

The sweet hope 



life beyond, and made them able to obey the calling 
which He had put within. 0, if they had only be- 
lieved, they would neither have feared nor sor- 
rowed, although they did not understand the things 
that were ahead of them." The analogy between 
this insect transition and human life, death and 
resurrection,and between the tranquility of an intelli- 
gent faith and the disquietude and despair of unbe- 
lief is very plain and needs no comment. 



of the gospel 
shadowed forth. 



God had placed within them 
which whispered of the better 



•i 



GHAPTER XIII. 



As an instructive type of Ghrist and an exposition 
of the essentials of Christianity, the life of Adam is 
a study of the highest order, and both pleasing and 
profitable will the lesson be found to all who 
search diligently into its wealth of wisdom. As 
the father of the natural race, all human existence 
had its origin in him; and he obtained a wife from a 
wound made in his own side while he lay "in a deep 
sleep." This wife was "bone of his bone and flesh 
of his flesh," and she jointly with himself propa- 
gated the race, and the race thus propagated had 
all the physical, mental and moral qualities of its 
Adam as an inter- progenitors. Thus Christ is 
ItiiJctive tySe of the paternal head of the spirit- 
ual race, and he also obtained 
his wife through a wound made in his "side;" while 
the "deep sleep" of three days in the rich man's 
tomb is expressive indeed. The church is the 
Lamb's bride and she owes her existence to the 
wounds of Christ. She, as "bone of His bone and 
flesh of His flesh," jointly with her divine Lord, 
propagates the spiritual race; who, when born of 
God have even now the spiritual and at the resur- 



254 THE GOSPEL OF 

rection will have in some degree the other qual- 
ities and appearances of their divine Progenitor. 

God told the prophet Jeremiah to go down to the 
potter's house that he might instruct him. He 
obeyed and saw the potter making a vessel on the 
wheel and the vessel was marred in the potter's 
hands and he broke it up and softened the clay, 
and from the same piece of clay he made "another 
vessel as seemed good to the 

The potter and , 

the clay, a divine potter. This was a very com- 

lesson. ■* 

prehensive and instructive fig- 
ure. This was God's revelation to Jeremiah of His 
infinite purposes and dealings with humanity, as 
the context goes on to show. This potter repre- 
sents the Maker of all things and the vessel He 
was making represents the grand mosaic of crea- 
tion and all it included; hence Adam and the whole 
human family. The wheel represents the machin- 
ery of God's universal providence. Nature and hu- 
manity is the vessel that was marred. As the ves- 
sel in the potter's hands was marred just before its 
completion, perhaps, by the insertion of foreign 
substance, which some one might have dropped into 
the potter's clay, so creation and the human family 
The grand mo- just before the original proba- 
lnditIieS?onS> tion was completed were 

jnarred by the arch-enemy of 
the race infusing the foreign substance of sin into 
the garden of Eden and the hearts of our first par- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 255 

ents. Here, through the disobedience of the first 
Adam, the race was ruined in the marring of the 
work of the divine Potter. 

The most pleasing instruction in connection with 
this type is found in reference to the manner in 
which Adam ruined and Ghrist redeemed the race. 
The lust of the The lust of the flesh and the 
thlVesVnd ^he lust of the eyes and the pride 

pride of life. Qf j. fQ ^ ^ Qnly temptations 

with which the devil can assail the soul. These 
three temptations, however appear in a thousand 
different forms and dressed in as many different 
garbs, and happy is the man who knows how to de- 
feat and overcome them and refuses to sell his 
birth-right for their mess of pottage. When Satan 
tempted our first parents, we find but those three 
points made. He told them the forbidden fruit was 
'good for food," that is the lust of the flesh; "pleas- 
ant to the eyes," that is the lust of the eyes; and, 
"to be desired to make one wise," that is the pride 
of life. They yielded to the Satanic pressure and 
ate the forbidden fruit. The consequence of this 
substitution of their own will for God's will was ap- 
palling and ruinous in the extreme. 

Adam had, up to this time, a perfectly healthy 
body, entirely free from disease and the seeds of 
death. He had a perfectly clear and unclogged 
mind. His mind was six thousand years ahead of 
the best science of the world as referred to in 



236 THE GOSPEL OF 

another place. His body was the perfection of 
health. He had the most perfect and congenial 
surroundings; but this one substitution of his own 
My win not WILL F0R god's will blasted and 

makS hei d i°o n f e ruined all. It filled the peace- 
able animals over whom they 
were made lords with vicious and blood-thirsty na- 
tures; their land with a disposition to bring forth 
thistles and briers; the souls of the pair with re- 
morse and their bodies with disease; in fact, it 
transformed Eden into an inferno and opened up a 
stream of groans, tears, sorrow, blood and death as 
broad as the earth and six thousand years in 
length. 

There is absolutely no hope for creation as it is 
today, no hope of restoration to original glory for 
Earth and the Ada ™ or an y member of the hu- 
LTSmaLd man family out of Christ. All 
is a marred vessel in the hands 
of the divine Potter, no matter how well educated, 
baptized or polished. The vessel was all marred, 
and its only hope depended upon being broken up 
and thoroughly moistened and re-formed into "a 
new vessel as seemed good to the potter." Thus 
with humanity and the world; as a marred vessel 
our only hope depends on being "broken all up," 
through repentance and moistened and made pli- 
able by the dew of God's grace and re-formed "a new 
creature in Christ" "The sacrifices of the Lord 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 237 

are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite hearti 
O God, Thou wilt not despise-" Psa. 51:17. 
"Whosoever falleth on this rock shall be broken, 
but upon whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him 
to powder." Matt. 21 :44. 

The "breaking" process is painful and crucifying 
to humanity, but it is absolutely necessary if we 
would ever be made, "another vessel as seemed 
good to the potter." As Jesus did not use the 
naturally hard, unyielding clay to anoint the eyes of 
the blind man, John 9:6., but 

The clay must be 

softened to anoint spat on the ground and made 

the blind eyes. 

clay of the spittle, so today, 
Christ cannot use us to anoint blind eyes while we 
are in our naturally hard, unbroken and unpliable 
condition, but He must break us up, soften us down 
by the dews of His own blessed lips, re-fashion us 
with His own divine hands, and then we are fit 
"clay" to "anoint" the blind eyes of sinners. The 
anointing, however did not open the blind eyes, but 
it prepared him to wash in the pool, where he re- 
ceived sight in the very act. So today, God anoints 
the eyes of the spiritually blind with clay, the 
physical powers used in the preaching of the truth, 
but this does not really save the man, he must 
come to the gospel pool and personally wash to re- 
ceive his sight. 

The potter did not take a new piece of clay, out 
the same old piece. Jesus and the millennial crea- 



238 THe GOSPEL OF 

tion, embracing all in Him, is the new vessel; and 
thank God, both humanity and creation as the orig- 
inal clay are eventually to be redeemed and made 
anew in Christ, "as a vessel 

Gethsemane on 

the siteof the that seemeth good to the DOt- 

Gardeu of Eden. & * 

ter." All that was lost in 
Adam and the original creation will be more than 
regained in Christ and the new creation. Sweep 
down the stream of time four thousand years from 
the ruinous consequences of the fall, and again we 
visit the old battle-field (Gethsemane is thought by 
some of the best historians to be the very site of 
the Garden of Eden.) We find a being here who is 
called in the Scriptures "the second Adam." Here 
on the old site he meets the old foe, who has had 
four thousand years to intrench himself. He had 
previously been tempted by the devil on the same 
identical points as was Adam and had vanquished 
him. 

After He had fasted forty days the devil had at- 
tacked Him with a request that He use His divine 
power to turn stones into bread. 

Tnrniug stones , _ _ _ 

into bread is poor This was the lust of the flesh 

bnsmess. 

in its finest and most harmless 
form, but for Ghrist to have yielded here would 
have been the prostitution of His divine powers to 
unworthy ends. He had the power to supernatur- 
ally supply bread to feed the multitudes in the wild- 
erness, but that power must not be used at the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 239 

devil's suggestion to deliver Himself from provi- 
dential trials. He determined to trust His Father's 
care and endure the trial until the Father saw fit to 
remove it. Again, He was tempted to cast Himself 
down from the pinnacle of the temple to prove His 
divine and miraculous power. This was the lust of 
the eyes. All Christ's miracles were benedictions 
in themselves, to the persons on whom they were 
performed. But had Ghrist done this it would have 
had no influence, but to make folks stare, and won- 
der, and talk, and create a carnal and worldly glory 
for the Actor. It would have been simply yielding 
to the devil. 

Ghrist did prove His divinity, however, but not in 
the devil's way. It was not by doing some daring, 
showy, loud-mouthed, useless 

How Jesus did 

prove ms divine act; but by His humiliation and 

Sonshlp. 

willingness to die for His ene- 
mies' salvation when He could have defended Him- 
self with "twelve legions of angels." The devil 
tempts men to show off their power and ability, but 
of Ghrist it is written, "There was the hiding of His 
power." Again an appeal to Scripture saved the 
Lord from His satanic foe. He was next shown 
"the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them," 
and promised their possessions if He would wor- 
ship the devil. This was an appeal to the pride of 
life, but was again repulsed by an appeal to the 
sacred Word, after which the devil left Him for a 



240 



THE GOSPEL OF 



while and angels ministered to Him. The reason 
some people are never tempted on either of these 
latter lines is because they never go beyond the 
"lusts of the flesh." They fall at the first tempta- 
tion. It pays to resist temptations, and none will 
ever enjoy the angelic ministration, but those who 
do so successfully. 

Here in Gethsemane, under conditions the very 
reverse of those under which the first Adam failed, 



congenial and unholy influences pressed in on every 
side. But amid it all Ghrist said, "not my will, but 
thine be done, 1 ' and the consequences of this rever- 
sal of Adam's decision reversed the consequences 
of that decision. Sin and salvation. Adam and 
Ghrist in their experiences thoroughly illustrate the 
"Gospel of Gause and Effect." This substitution 
of the divine will for His own will, opened up a 
stream of peace and joy, and life, and salvation, 
and glory as broad as Adam's substitution of his 
own will for God's had opened up the contrary 
stream. Christ's decision has opened up heaven 
and salvation, as fully as Adam's decision opened 
up hell and damnation. But as all had to be real 
children of Adam, to be affected by his ruin, so all 
must be "born again," in reality become children of 



The will makes 
Paradise an in- 
ferno or Geth- 
semane a para- 
dise. 



Jesus, the second Adam, suc- 
ceeded. He was pressed with 
the weight of a world's sin, a 
worn and tired body, while un- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 241 

Ghrist, to be affected by Christ's redemption. "As 
in Adam all die, so in Ghrist shall all be made alive;" 
but we must through a living faith, actually be "in 
Ghrist." A mere profession will not do. The ex- 
tent to which Jesus bore all the shame, pain and 
death that we deserved is the limit to which we 
may bear all the love, life and blessing that He de- 
served. The prerogatives and possessions of our 
substitute pass to us by virtue of the fact that He 
exchanged places with us and suffered in our stead. 
This makes the possibilities of redeemed mankind 
through faith, as limitless as glorious. 

It is written, "As we have borne the image of the 
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" 
Beautiful appear- A dam. This is true physically 
Sf^be^utiftS 1 * as well as spiritually, and as 
spirit * men's hearts have to be "broken 

up" in repentance, to be made like Ghrist in spirit, 
so our bodies may be broken up through death and 
the grave, to be "fashioned like unto His glorious 
body." There is latent in every natural heart the 
desire to be beautiful, but a disposition to be ugly, 
and the disposition being stronger than the desire, 
men generally act bad till Ghrist is permitted to 
transform them. It is foolish, however to seek for 
the beauty we need in paint, powder and babylonish 
finery; Ghrist alone has beauty to bestow. He 
"beautifies the meek with salvation." He bestows 
'beauty for ashes." His beauty is placed on the 

CE16 



242 THE GOSPEL OF 

inside to be "worked out;" the world's beauty is 
placed on the outside and cannot be worked in. 

Worldlings, like the patriarch Job, must go into 
the "ashes" of all their carnal hopes and worldly 
_ , air-castles to find this heavenly 

True wisdom 

be y !one r " y win beauty. Ghrist makes His peo- 
ple feel beautiful now and He 
will make them look beautiful after awhile. He is 
said to be "The chiefest among ten thousand" and 
the One "altogether lovely," and it is written, "We 
shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is." 
Here and in no other place, can the natural, though 
perverted human desire for beauty, be satisfied, 
when as Christians, "we awake in His likeness." 
All who by their actions today prove that they 
acquiesce in Christ's decision to substitute the 
divine will for theirs in all things will be blessed 
by that fact with all the mercies which that 
decision purchased; and, on the other hand, all 
who by their own willfulness prove that they ac- 
quiesce in Adam's substitution of his own will for 
God's, are consequently cursed by all the miseries 
which that decision brought. Similar consequences 
have followed similar decisions in all ages, just to 
the extent of the influence of the parties deciding. 

Take, for instance, the most wretched, hopeless 
sinner on earth, and let him begin to substitute the 
divine will for his own and the results will be glori- 
ous. Memory revives and he views his rags and 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 243 

ruin, and thinks of the once happy wife and bright 
children who graced his cosy home, ere drink and 
wickedness of his had wrought ruin there. His 
Acjniescencein friends and family, with his 
Seaitb^happi- health, hope and happiness 

ness and heaven. , „ , .« , , r . 

have all been sacrificed to his 
own willful rebellion against God. But as he 
yields, the tears begin to trickle down, sighs begin 
to heave his bosom and he cries out, "Oh, my God, 
not my will, but Thine be done in all things for- 
evermore." Hallelujah! What a transformation! 
Hope revives, faith triumphs, a new light springs 
into his countenance, a new energy leaps through 
his veins and he exclaims, "Bless God! I'll begin 
life anew." Hope, happiness, health, friends and 
bright prospects for both worlds now begin to 
brighten his life and his earthly inferno is trans- 
formed into a terrestrial paradise. 

On the other hand, you can take the wealthiest, 
healthiest, happiest child of grace on earth and let 
him begin to rebelliously substi- 

God's reward for , 

the love of right- tute his own will for God S Will, 

eonsness. 

and hope, happiness, health and 
friends all seem to flee away while remorse 
and a sense of God's displeasure turn his earthly 
Eden into a hell of sorrow indeed. When Christ 
had proved His principles the angels declared in 
their song of adoration to Him as the Savior of sin- 
ners and the conqueror of the enemy of the divine 



244 TH6 GOSPEL OF 

throne: "Because Thou hast loved righteousness 
and hated iniquity, therefore God, even Thy God, 
hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above 
Thy fellows." If we are ever "anointed with the 
oil of gladness above" our "fellows" it will be because 
we prove that we "love righteousness and hate in- 
iquity." So few seem to understand the subtlety 
of the old foe when he suggests to them to "turn 
stones into bread" by some unlawful means, or by 
entering into doubtful business schemes to help 
themselves out of the tests placed upon them by 
The on of glad- Providence. The world de- 
fo e r 9 tie fov e e W o a f rd mands that its burdened spirits 
righteousness. masquerade in the stolen robes 

of slaughtered happiness and that its broken hearts 
mask their misery under an unfelt smile, but true 
Ghristianity really heals the smart and infuses joy 
and gladness. An actual and conscious conversion 
is the only hope of the race; the "marred vessel" 
must be "broken," softened and re-formed or go 
entirely without the divine trade mark of gladness 
or a place in the "great house" on high. 

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, this 
same lesson of the marring and re-forming of the 
parable of the divine vessel, or the ruin and 
g2d d iteSSSS- redemption of the race is 
tion to us. brought out. The "man" who 

"went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell 
among thieves," was Adam, the head of the race. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



245 



It is significant that he went down rather than up. 
"Jerusalem" was the "city of the Great King" and 
what is meant the place where God revealed 



of God. "Jericho" was the antipodes of Jerusalem. 
It was the first city cursed by a divine overthrow 
when the Jews took Ganaan. It was rebuilt and 
became to this day the headquarters of the banditti 
in all that part of Judea. The word Jericho was 
equivalent to God's disapprobation and wrath. 

When Adam unlawfully visited the forbidden 
fruit tree he made this descent. The thieves 



parted, leaving him half dead." These "thieves" 
represent the seducing demons, who stole from 
him the favor of God and the divine image in which 
he was created. They 4 wounded him." O, how 
full of "wounds and bruises and putrifying sores" is 
humanity today. How full of sore, touchy places is 
the whole human family as a consequence. They 
left him "half dead." Yes, this is literally true. 
Men naturally are moral corpses but physically 
alive. "Dead in trespasses and sins," is the ver- 
dict: needing to be "born again" to see God. An 
unconverted man is only half a man, and it is the 
poorest half, the wounded and bruised half. The 




the man who 
went to Jericho. 



The identity of 



among whom he fell are said to 
have "stripped him of his rai- 
ment, wounded him and de- 



246 THe GOSPEL OF 

divine and spiritual portion is dead in trespasses 
and sins. 

They also "stripped him;" it is written, i. e. they 
robbed him of his royal robe of glory and innocence. 

It is a significant fact that man, 

Human nudity , . - _ 

in comparison to the masterpiece of God s crea- 

the covering of 

the lower ani- tive power, is the only one of 

mals. J 

His creatures that is perfectly 
nude. Birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles and insects are all 
clad in the most wonderful robes, but man, the lord of 
all, is perfectly naked. These creatures are blessed 
witji a beautiful, self-adjusting robe that always 
fits, whether they grow lean or fat; and with many 
of them, their self-adjusting robes of fur or feathers 
grow light in summer and heavier in the winter. If 
it becomes torn through accident it mends itself; 
not so with our artificial robes. The divine mech- 
anism of these creatures' robes can be seen by a 
microscopic examination of a fish's scale or a bird's 
feather. 

Why is the human 'family perfectly nude and 
filled at the same time with a sense of shame for 
their nakedness? Is it not a 

How man came 

nude perfectly physical expression of a spirit- 
ual condition, an outside 
prophecy of an interior state. And is not this 
sense of shame and instinctive mortification caused 
through a sort of intuitional knowledge of our 
responsibility for our fallen state? Gould man 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 247 

have been made so originally? By no means; like 
Jesus' garments at the transfiguration, man was, 
doubtless glory-robed and beautiful in his pristine 
Edenic state, ere he "went down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho" and was "robbed" and "stripped" by the 
"thieves." He will be thus royally robed again, 
thank God, through the atonement of Jesus; in the 
glorious resurrection morning, at the dawn of the 
coming millennial sabbatic age of peace. 

It is prophetically significant in reading in Gene- 
sis of the prototype of this parable, that when the 
guilty pair lost their vari-graced 

Patchwork in re- 

o i ft 1 hef i aii liefruit r °k e °* glory, they resorted to 
the fig leaves and patch work 
to cover their shame. The human family is to this 
day prone to get into this patch work or second- 
hand business in religion. That it is not accept- 
able to God is manifest from the fact that He had 
these robes laid aside and dressed them Himself in 
the skins of beasts. This act shadowed forth the 
sacrifice of the lamb-like Jesus to cover the naked- 
ness caused by sin. It was a proof as well of God's 
recognition of the original communion and close re- 
lationship that existed between all forms of real 
life. One of Adam's near and dear creatures must 
die as a sort of propitiation for sin, to shadow forth 
the death of "the Beloved of the Lord-" 

The "thieves" when they had done their work 
"departed," it is written. Unless it was in the 



248 THE GOSPEL OF 

temptation of Christ, the devil has never possibly 
had courage to reappear on earth in the form and 
manner in which he committed 

Satan's most das- , - 

tardiy acts-the that dastardly outrage on the 

fall of Adam and 

chris? iptation of inexperienced though warned 
inhabitants of Eden, He has 
no need to do so now for he manifests himself to- 
day through depraved humanity. 

The "priest" and "Levite," who passed by on the 
other side represent the two dispensations that 
preceded the present one. The patriarchal dispen- 
sation could well be called a priestly dispensation, 
for, as in the case of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot 
and all other heads of devout families, they were 
the priests in their own homes. The Mosaic dis- 
pensation was pre-eminently "Levitical" and needs 
no explanation. Neither of those dispensations 
did anything really, in the way of healing poor, 
blind, crippled, wounded, outraged humanity. 

A "Samaritan" is, in the Jewish estimation, a 
mongrel, an unlawful mixture of Judaism and heath- 
enism. This is just the idea 

The Jewish idea 

of a Samaritan that covered Ghnstianity in the 

Christianity. J 

Jewish mind, an unlawful* 
mongrel mixture. The Jews said of Christ, "Thou 
art a Samaritan and hast a devil." Well, humanity 
generally finds Jesus to be a great deal what they 
make Him out to be; so He determined beforehand, 
if they would represent Him as "a Samaritan," 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



249 



then He would be "a good Samaritan." Hallelujah! 
Nothing was ever done toward re-forming the 
marred vessel and restoring the outraged human 
family to its rights, out of which it had been robbed, 
till Christ, the "good Samaritan" 'journeyed" from 
heaven to where it was. 

Yes, it was a long "journey" for Christ to leave 
His throne and companionship divine, to come 



ney" to this sin-cursed and disease-wrecked world, 
because, as the next words say, "He had compass- 
ion on him." 0, wondrous "compassionl" 0, 
adorable Christ! Here is a friend, here is help, 
here is succor, sweet and complete. "He bound 
up his wounds and poured in oil and wine." Thank 
God for the dressing of the wounds by the divine 
Physician, the healing of the touchy, tender spots. 
Thank God for the "wine" of joy and the "oil" of 
glory, which Jesus freely bestows in justification 
and sanctification upon all who "call in" this divine 
Physician to dress their wounds. Wine always 
represents saving grace, and oil represents the 
Holy Spirit. 

He "brought him to an inn,' , that is, a hotel. A 
hotelis a place where a weary traveler finds rest,a dus- 
ty traveler finds a bath room,a hungry man finds food, 
a homeless wanderer finds a home; and all this the 



Jesus as a foreign 
missionary to 
earth. 



down where fallen man was, 
but blessed be God, He made 
the foreign missionary "jour- 



250 



THE GOSPEL OF 



true church of Jesus, the divine hotel, proves to be to 
the souls and bodies of men. "He took care of him." 
Yes, Jesus watches over each boarder in this divine 



commanded the hotel-keeper to give him all he 
needed and He promised at His second coming He 
would repay it. All our soul's needs were paid for 
by Jesus ere He "departed'* and the church mem- 
bers, as the hotel-keepers, are told to give each 
poor moral convalescent all he needs and wait the 
second coming of Jesus for their reward. This is 
the divine description of the neighborly Samaritan 
who then tells us, "Go thou and do likewise" 
Glory to His blessed name! All true Christians 
are good Samaritans. Jesus said, "I have given 
you an example that ye should do as I have done to 
you." 

"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye 
love one another." These words of the Galilean 
Carpenter opened up a new epoch in the history of 
the human race. A religion without love and 



is manifestly false, and a political or economic system 



The New Testa- 
ment church as a 
divine boarding 
house to the 
needy race. 



hotel with a kind and fatherly 
solicitation and a momentary 
care. He also paid the pauper's 
board ere He "departed" and 



The cause of God 
is the cause of 
humanity 
also. 



sympathy is a thorn without the 
beauty and fragrance of the 
rose; and a religion that ignores 
the needs of the physical man 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



251 



that ignores his spiritualneedis equally so. Deity has 
no pleasure where humanity has no profit; the 
cause of God is the cause of humanity. Glorify God 
and you bless mankind; bless humanity and you 
glorify God. The preacher and the politician have 
really but one cause; reform and religion when 
sound and sensible have a common source and a 
common goal. 

God's highest glory is inseparably connected 
with man's greatest good; as a good father's high- 



as far-reaching as it is true. It inseparably links the 
congenial physical surroundings, bodily health and 
best mental development of the human family with 
the will of God, as fully as spiritual purity and devel- 
opment are conceded to be His will. God loves and 
finds pleasure in every essential element of the lives 
that He has made. This proves that it never can 
be God's primary or best will for His people to live 
in squallor or be sick in body or dark and ignorant 
in mind, any more than it is His will for them to be 
sinful and defiled in spirit. 

The religion that does not sweeten the spirit 
and perfume the active life of its posses- 
sor with sympathy's sweet fragrance is void 
of the divine endorsement, for love is the 
Lord's own trade mark. As Christians, let us be 



God's glory and 
man's good syn- 
onymous. 



est pleasure is largely depend- 
ent upon the health and happi- 
ness of his family. This fact is 



252 



THE GOSPEL OF 



true cosmopolitans, too big for any sect and too 
broad for any nation. Let every thought be a 
prayer, let every word be a psalm of praise and 



of Jesus and make our lives a sacrificial offering for 
the brotherhood of the race. Let us refuse to mix 
a draught of wormwood, gall and vinegar for the 
most God-forsaken "son of man." As divinely 
"wise men" let us reverently lay our gold, frankin- 
cense and myrrh at the feet of every earth-born 
re-incarnation of God, though the birthplace be a 
stable. 

Let us break our "alabaster boxes of ointment of 
spikenard very precious" and pour their costly con- 
The breaking of tents on the devoted head of 



"anoint" them "aforehand to the burying." Let us 
fill the prison house of the universal "son of man" 
with the odor of our hearts' most precious ointment 
and our lives' most fragrant love. Let us drop a 
few tears of sympathy on the tired feet of the 
world's condemned scapegoats, and let fall the 
tresses of true discipleship over the sun-scorched 
nakedness of some heart-burdened "son of man." 
Let the last words of some dying, thorn-crowned 
victim of this cold world's heartlessness be, "She 



Too big for any 
sect or party. 



every work a wayside sacrament 
acceptable to God. Let us bury 
our bitterness in the open grave 



the alabaster 
boxes of tbe 
heart. 



the doomed race. With love 
and sympathy let us divinely 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



255 



hath wrought a good work on me," or, "She hath 
done what she could." Oh, heed not the indignant 
murmurings of the heartless throng who talk of a 
"waste" of effort and a thankless task and the money 
that might be made in another course, even though 
they cover their carnality by a pretense of plead- 
ing for the poor. Let us begin early and do this 
during life, lest our postmortem use of ointments 
and spices come too late and be angelically rejected 
as was Mary's at the tomb. 

Many keep their hearts closed, or their affection- 
ate appreciation unexpressed till too late, when 
The Toiiy of post- y ear s might have been added to 



is foolish to postpone the breaking of our alabaster 
boxes or the offering of our myrrh and frankin- 
cense till after death has released the recipient of 
all need of the aromatic action. The embalming 
spices of postmortem praise, tombstone eulogy and 
graveyard kindness are always as useless as the 
Magdalene found her spices to be at the rich man's 
rock-hewn sepulchre. With love's true fragrance 
let us sweeten, cheer and brighten the lives of 
those around us and receive the commendation 
both of conscience and of God. As in the case 
of Magdalene, the resurrected Ghrist will soon visit 
all such loving disciples with a personal "Hail 
Mary" that will thrill their souls with joy. "Inas- 



mortem praise 
and tombstone 
eulogy. 



the lives of their loved ones if 
they had received their due. It 



254 THE GOSPEL OF 

much as ye did it unto the least of these ye did it 
unto me." 

The identity of the Son of Man as the Son of 
God, is the secret of the ages and the philosophic 
The aim of the principle upon which this is ac- 
j!S2SfcnriS3J5£ complished is the real lesson of 
the universe and the study of 
time. The unity of divinity and humanity in an in- 
telligent Christianity is the aim of the ages, and 
plainly revealed as the plan of the Almighty. 

The universe itself is but a theatre in which to 
display the glorious results of Christ's redemption 
on the stage of earth. This mighty millennial man 
in his universal unity, this coming Emmanuel in his 
divine humanity will be as truly a reflection of the 
earthly life of Jesus as He is a fruition of His 
death. God has said, "We shall be like Him when 
we shall see Him as He is." This will be but "the 
revelation of the sons of God," as spoken of in the 
Bible. Men stagger at the promise of God through 
unbelief, but it is written, "Eye hath not seen nor 
ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of 
The consequence man " to consider "the things 
?L S pr!nSse n s g of t that God hath prepared for 
God ' them that love him." Like 

Abraham in the incident of the birth of Ishmael, we 
resort to illegitimate and Egyptian measures to 
piece out God's promise which unbelief declares is 
about to fail. And like him, the thing that we re- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 253 

ceive is not the child of promise, the divine Isaac, 
but a heartless, heathen half-breed like Ishmael, 
almost as destructive in its results as the birth of 
this bastard who was responsible for the Moham- 
medan bible, the Koran, the military enforcement of 
which has fertilized the fields of the orient with the 
blood of a hundred million martyrs. Nevertheless 
like the sure birth of Isaac, God's millennial train 
will arrive on schedule time and a sabbatic age of 
peace presided over by the divinely human Em- 
manuel will prove the plan of the eras and the 
power of God. 

The chronic croakers, the infidel objectors, the 
fossils of formality will be unable longer to frighten 
The marching the vanguard of God's marching 
r^ach OI the S ir 0 pro- millions in their steady tramp 

1 " " to their promised land of light 

and liberty, like the unbelieving spies did Israel of 
old. Our wilderness wanderings are almost over, 
thank God. All down along the ages, the prophets, 
martyrs, sages have foretold of this day's dawning 
long ago. 

The prophecies of a holier day are seen in our 
military, political and economic conditions as well 
The harbingers as in our religious affairs, 
are seen on every Ghrist's redemption will as per- 
fectly Edenize the chaotic con- 
ditions of the present, as Adam's ruin blasted the 
primitive paradise. Those who refuse to heed the 



256 THE GOSPEL OF 

warnings of the advance criers of the kingdom will 
be eternally relegated to the rear for their crime. 
Those who fail through faith to recognize the 
intuitional instruction of the semi-seers of today 
will be left in the lurch as back numbers of a 
defunct edition like "the foolish virgins," when the 
dispensational "door is shut." 

Men have been ever prone to stone the prophets 
of the present while garnishing the sepulchres of 
contempt for tne ones their fathers stoned. 
na?bSS 0 tge le s S in Familiarity is through unbelief 
of the ages. permitted to breed contempt 

for one's contemporaries, but the prophets of the 
present must have a hearing soon. Faith is like a 
telescope in that it reveals distant glorious worlds 
and to some extent ignores the one on which it 
rests. Unbelief is like a microscope in that it 
magnifies the merest trifles of earth, but is in- 
capable of seeing great things. 

None but those waking and "wise virgins" whose 
"lamps" of faith and inspiration are "trimmed and 
The "wise vir- burning" will ever be able to 
crSss^h^Vorder cross the chasm into the better 
mto the new age. age to come> These will form 

a favored few at the close of this age who will pass 
into the future conditions as the early saints and 
disciples did into the Ghristian day from the Mosaic 
age. The others will suffer in the reconstruction- 
ary tribulation as the unbelieving Jews did in the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



257 



siege of Jerusalem under Titus the Roman; and for 
the same infidel cause. 

All things foreshadow the fact that we are com- 
ing into a re-constructionary era. Present condi- 
aii sound re- tions are doomed; and thought- 
harbfn^erYof tne fulness reads the record of the 
coming kingdom, decision in every atom of its 
congested carcass. Our modern feudalism in com- 
merce and economics is as ruinous as its old- 
time namesake. The strained relations of all 
things portend a change. The day of rank indivi- 
dualism is over. Separation is suicidal and dis- 
association is death. The principle of unity and 

true brotherhood is seen to be the only solution to 
our knotty problems even in politics, commerce or 
international affairs. The church is away behind in 
her reasoning on this matter. Even the world's 
thinking men see this change to be both a necessity 
and a certainty. What this coming change is they 
do not know; but it is the coming of the kingdom of 
Ghrist. Many of the political reforms demanded 
today, such as the entire prohibition of alcoholic 
liquors, Ghristian theocracy or man's true equality 
and fraternity, the public ownership of all public 
utilities, and equal rights to nature's products, all are 
harbingers of the coming of the millennial reign of 
Jesus. "Coming events cast their shadows before." 
The prospects are as bright as the promises of God 
and the coming results are as sure as Omnipotence 
is great. 



258 THE GOSPEL OF 

Welcome, thou long-looked-for age of "peace on 
earth and good will to men." Welcome, thou hope 
of all peoples and desire of all nations, when death 
will have lost its sting and the grave its victory. 
Thrice welcome, thou blessed, sacrificial Savior, 
whose glorious second coming makes all these 
blessings sure. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be 
done in earth as it is in heaven." Amen. 



THE END. 



Books By The Same Author 



THE MIDNIGHT GRY. 

T. H. NELSON, 

A vigorous elucidation of the prophetical por- 
tions of Scripture respecting the present strained 
condition of affairs celestial, terrestrial, political, 
social and religious, as harbingers of the second 
coming of Christ. Intensely interesting. 166 
pages cloth, 35c postpaid. 



MARVELS IN METAPHOR. 

T. H. NELSON. 

Ten compact sermons on as many subjects. Dr. 
J. T. Boyd, the Christian scholar, says of it: "It 
is a whole arsenal of divine truth in which pro- 
jectiles of every sort and size are obtainable for 
destructive work in the camps of infidelity and 
error." Paper bound. 10c postpaid. 



LIFE AND LABORS OF 
REV. VIVIAN A. DAKE. 

T. H. NELSON. 

A remarkable book which has been a blessing to 
thousands. Full of rich experiences, thrilling in- 
cidents and heart-searching truths. The story of 
a remarkable life, with a collection of beautiful 
poems by the subject. 508 pages. Bound in cloth 
and gilt. $1.00 postpaid. 



JEWELS OF TRUTH 
IN SETTINGS OF GOLD. 

T. H. NELSON. * 

A new book of short, philosophic truths, soon to 
be issued. Price for advance orders $1 .00. 



Grace Publishing Co, Indianapolis 



Begin Today . . 

CHRISTIAN READER: 

May we not appeal to your aroused 
conscience to practice at once the pre- 
cepts which you have read in the fore- 
going chapters? 

Have you not been interested, in- 
structed, encouraged, inspired and blest 
in the perusal of these pages? 

Why not bestow similar privileges 
upon others? 

What would be more considerate 
than to present a copy of this fifth gos- 
pel to your friends? 

The principles of cause and effect 
as herein shown will certainly reward 
your magnanimous colportage even 
though you may not like to consider 
yourself merely an agent for a bible 
society. 

The Publishers. 



t CQH HECUVtl) 
NOV ^ 1903 



id 



